Farm safety advocates say embarrassment about mistakes could cost lives.

Victorian Farmers Federation vice-president Brett Hosking says no one brags about near-misses, but they should at least talk about them.

“One thing we really encourage, particularly with growers, is you have that near miss and it’s not something you go into the office and brag about,” Hosking recently told reporters.

“It’s something you go in and say; ‘Gee I was actually pretty lucky today, it could’ve gone a lot worse, thank God it didn’t and you should have a bit of a look at this’.”

While some farmers make good use of tools like safety audits, Hosking said communication is key to changing the way people think about safety.

“It’s one of those things that farmers are traditionally not always that good at being instructed to make changes, but really good at talking among each other and making changes and becoming better at their jobs that way,” he said.

WorkSafe Victoria’s Marnie Williams said near misses can be the most instructive.

“Capturing incident or near miss details as they happen allows for action to be taken before a more serious event occurs,” Ms Williams said.

“If an incident or near miss exposes a worker in the immediate vicinity to risks to their health and safety, employers must notify WorkSafe.

“If you’re self-employed it’s just as important to have appropriate processes to ensure near misses are recorded to identify if you have the right controls in place to minimise the chance of something going wrong in your workplace.”