Safe Work Australia has released a report into farm safety, which found that one in six workers killed in Australia were working on a farm.

The Work-related injustices and fatalities on Australian farms report monitored statistics over an eight year period until June last year.

While the agriculture sector only employs 4 per cent of the Australian work force, it accounts for an average of 44 workplace fatalities and 17,4000 work-related injuries.

Safe Work Australia Chair, Ann Sherry, said the disproportionate findings are particularly alarming.

“While the statistics themselves are alarming, they don’t reflect the many more families, work colleagues and communities who are affected by a farm-related fatality or injury.

Other key findings from the report include

  • Vehicles accounted for nearly three quarters of work-related fatalities on farms.
    • In the eight years of the study 93 workers died while using a tractor. Half of these workers were aged 65 years and over one-third of the deaths involved a rollover.
    • Aircraft incidents while undertaking tasks such as mustering or crop dusting claimed the lives of 48 workers.
    • Quad bikes were involved in 27 fatalities of which 20 were due to a rollover.
  • Almost one-third of work-related fatalities on Australian farms involved workers aged 65 years or over. This is nearly three times the proportion the age group represents of all worker fatalities in Australian workplaces.
  • Young farm workers had more hospitalisations for a motorbike or horse-related incident while older workers had more hospitalisations from contact with machinery.
  • Only half of Australian agriculture workers are covered by workers’ compensation as 46 percent are self-employed. The report showed that nearly one in four workers’ compensation claims were due to working with animals, one in five were from working with mobile plant and transport including motorbikes and nearly one in five were from working with non-powered tools and equipment.

The full report is available here