The tragic death of one of New Zealand’s leading dog triallists in a farm-related accident is yet another stark reminder of the dangers that confront those working on the land.
Neil Evans was killed in an ATV accident on his family farm at Omihi in North Canterbury on Monday, July 22.
The death has hit the tight-knit sheep dog trialling community particularly hard.
Evans was a longtime, well-respected triallist and captained the New Zealand Sheep Dog Trialling team that won the Wayleggo Cup at the annual Trans-Tasman 2023 test series held at the Ashburton A&P show in October last year.
Just last year Evans and his star performer Tess won the national short head title for the second consecutive year. Evans also finished fourth in that event with a second dog, Smoke.
The cause of Evans’s accident is under review and will be the subject of investigations by WorkSafe and the police.
However, the accident again raises the question of workplace safety on the farm and the worrying regularity of deaths in the industry each year.
It is an issue that has been discussed at length, with all manner of safety programmes made available to farmers.
According to WorkSafe statistics, six people died in agriculture workplace accidents between December 2023 and May this year. Five of those involved vehicles.
WorkSafe has previously warned that farm machinery can cost lives and farmers need to take time to think about that they are doing, and how they are doing it.
The issue prompted Safer Farms to launch a new health and safety programme last year, Farm Without Harm, with its catchphrase Half-Arsed Stops Here.
Safer Farms chair Lindy Nelson told Farmers Weekly at the time of the launch that the new strategy aimed to work from the farm up.
It was not about compliance or other people making rules for farmers. The programme was about farmers taking responsibility and coming together to find solutions to prevent deaths on farms.
“It’s about thinking about the big risks on farm, identifying those and going, ‘Okay, how do we mitigate those risks?’” Nelson said
“It’s about the ability for us to fail safely. It’s about acknowledging that we’re human.”
Nelson was adamant that the concept of health and safety needed to be reframed as it was a tainted brand.
“You get people immediately thinking that it’s about compliance. And while we’re not backing away from that, what we’re saying is, what we have done in the past has not worked. The statistics are as bad as ever so let’s own the problem. Let’s find solutions.” Rather than thinking about compliance, the aim is to have people just thinking about doing good work, which in turn should lead to safer practices.
The sad reality is that it often takes a fatality for people to finally sit up and take serious notice.
That needs to change. Everyone deserves to get home safely and put their feet up at the end of a long day at work.
