Farmer Health eNews October 2017
Find out all the latest from the National Centre for Farmer Health
- Looking for information on farmer health? Read this recent literature review by Siggins Miller
- Don’t compromise your health this harvest – plan ahead to stay ahead.
- Rush to the ‘G’ for Run 4 Farmer Health
- Wellness Wednesday Topics
Farm safety – harvest health
There are simple safety measures that can ensure harvest occurs safely and efficiently. As harvest approaches, it’s crucial that all machinery is checked to ensure a smooth and timely harvest. But simply mending the header and servicing the tractor won’t cut it if you want to protect the key component – you. Considering your health, wellbeing and safety is so important with the upcoming long hours and pressure to get the job done.
Have a quality harvest this year – don’t compromise your health
Take some time to protect yourself against injury and accidents by planning ahead with these tips:
- Check your tractor cabin to make sure you’ve got the right filter in place.
Harvest can be a dusty business so make sure you have an appropriate – and clean – dust filter fitted into your cabin. If you’re using chemicals, an activated carbon filter is recommended. These should be recharged every 6-12 months (or after 400 hours of service). If you have cabin dust, or if you can smell the chemicals you’re spraying, you need to recheck your filter. For more information, read: Useful tips on carbon filters
- Check the safety of your equipment.
Does your auger have a guard in place, and how about the PTO? These two pieces of equipment are the main cause of injury to hands and feet. Also consider the risks unguarded equipment has for children and pets – they don’t understand the equipment you use or how dangerous it can be. To make sure you have considered everything on tractor and machinery safety – Click here
- Plan a healthy harvest diet.
Sitting in the tractor or header all day, you won’t need to eat as many calories as you usually would. Have a good breakfast of low-GI carbohydrates (oats, barley- or bran-based cereals, grainy breads, eggs and/or cooked veggies). Don’t skip meals – pack a wholegrain sandwich and some fruit, nuts and veggies to nibble on. Avoid ‘convenient’ snacks like muesli bars, biscuits and chips as these are often high in sugar, salt and saturated fats. For lunchbox ideas, visit our page: Diet and Nutrition – Fuelling Farmers’ Lunch Boxes
- Avoid dehydration.
Plan to drink a few litres of water a day – have plenty of fresh water on hand to make this easy. Doing this will help avoid the constipation that can result from sitting for hours on end. Keep an eye on your urine – if it smells or is dark yellow, you need more water.
- Exercise.
Sitting in a bent or rotated position puts you at increased risk for of spinal and joint pain. Plan to make regular stops to get out of the cabin and walk around. Here are some exercises you can do in the cab, too:
- point your toes and use your big toe to write your name in the air,
- do some marching on the spot (while sitting down),
- sit up straight and gently twist side to side,
- arch your back then straighten up tall, and,
- turn your head side to side to stretch out your neck muscles.
They might sound a bit silly, but it’s better than a sore neck or lower back pain!
Why not stick up our Tractor and Header Exercises sheet in the cabin! Click here
- Manage fatigue
Your body needs sleep to regenerate, refresh and repair. Despite the pressure to get the crop off, make silage or hay, you need to plan your sleep so that your mind and body can function properly. To familiarise yourself with the symptoms and fatigue-management techniques: Click here
“It sounds basic – and it is,” says Professor Sue Brumby of the National Centre for Farmer Health, “But it never seems to amaze how many people neglect to do all, or any, of the above. Yet we all know, or know of, someone who has suffered, and suffered badly, during harvest.”
“It might have been an accident because they have fallen asleep, suffered a heart attack, hurt themselves in machinery, or tripped and sprained. With the proper planning, however, nearly all this can be avoided”.
Don’t forget the impact an incident or injury can have on your family and business.
Reduce the risks – plan ahead.
Fast facts:
- Farmers’ health, wellbeing and safety are often neglected when facing the pressures of harvest
- Simple safety measures can dramatically reduce the risk of injury and illness
- When planning for harvest, take time to integrate these measures to protect the health, wellbeing and safety of you, your family and other farm workers.
References used for this topic
Resources:
National Centre for Farmer Health
Filters – Useful tips on carbon filters
Diet and Nutrition – Fuelling Farmers’ Lunch Boxes
Stick up our Tractor and Header Exercises sheet in the cabin!
Farmsafe Australia
Safe tractor operation guide
Machinery guarding guide
Better Health Channel
Familiarise yourself with the symptoms and fatigue-management techniques
AgHealth Australia
Preventing Falls for Older Farmers
More information:
Australian Centre for Agricultural Health and Safety
Farmsafe Australia
Safe use of Quads and Side by Side Vehicles on Australian Farms
Emergency Preparedness
Better Health Channel
Farm safety – Machinery
Risks and hazards
2017-09-30: Deakin University survey finds members of commercial fishing industry experiencing high levels of psychological distress – NT News
MEMBERS of the commercial fishing industry are experiencing levels of psychological distress almost double that of the general population, new research has revealed.
A survey conducted by Deakin University showed a 19 per cent rate of depression among commercial fishers, compared to the estimated national diagnosis of 10 per cent.
Of the 1000 workers that responded to the 13-page survey, only 9 per cent of said they had experienced no bodily pain in the month prior, with 58 per cent saying they had experienced moderate to very severe pain.
Thirty nine per cent said they hadn’t addressed their physical and mental health problems with a GP because they felt they didn’t understand the pressures of the fishing industry.
Lead researcher Tanya King, an anthropologist within Deakin’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said, while the data is worrying, it wasn’t surprising.
“For many years those working in the fishing industry have shared their stories of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicide but we’ve never had the statistical data with which to support the overwhelming anecdotal evidence – until now,” she said.
Dr King said many respondents felt their work was “culturally undervalued” or misunderstood, with the health of Australian fisheries themselves often put before the health of those in the industry.
“Despite the industry contributing more than $3 billion to the national economy each year and supplying more than one billion serves of seafood, Australians don’t culturally value fishers like we venerate farmers,” she said.
“While there have been some fantastic awareness campaigns and health outcome successes in relation to mental health among rural and regional Australians, and particularly Aussie farmers, the men and women who catch our local seafood have tended to go under the radar.”
The team at Deakin’s Centre for Farmer Health has been working to adapt its Sustainable Farm Families wellbeing workshop program for fishers.
It has been successful in assisting 2300 farm families across the country and delivered its first ever fishing-specific event on the Bellarine Peninsula this year, with another workshop and pilot program launching in coming weeks.
If you or anyone you know is dealing with thoughts of suicide or psychological distress, call Lifeline on 131 114 or visit lifeline.org.au
View article: 2017-09-30: Deakin University survey finds members of commercial fishing industry experiencing high levels of psychological distress – NT News
26-9-2017: Regional towns push for slice of lucrative business conference and events industry pie – ABC News
Regional Australia wants to tap into the business conferences and events market to add to its economic base beyond industries such as mining and agriculture.
The prevailing view may be that business conferences and events are little more than junkets for those who go, but for the cities that host them they play an important part in that economy.
According to the most recent report published by the Business Events Council of Australia, business conferences and events contribute close to $30 billion in direct expenditure.
On top of that the value-add component, such as additional spending by delegates on goods, services and local tourism, is worth $13.5 billion.
That was generated by 412,000 business conferences and events in a single year.
But those events, and that spending, is almost exclusively confined to capital cities and very large urban centres such as the Gold Coast.
Now some from regional Australia want to seize the opportunity to be part of that sector and add another economic string to their bow beyond typical rural industries such as mining and agriculture.
Look at your town with new eyes.
Arianne Webb was heavily involved in tourism in the mining town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia for more than a decade.
The town is known as the unofficial mining capital of Australia and already hosts the international mining conference Diggers and Dealers.
Thousands of delegates descend on the town every year and pump millions into the local economy.
Ms Webb decided to launch Goldfields Conferences and Events, seeing synergies between conferencing and tourism and building on the region’s diversity.
“There’s rural health, we have training schools here and some very diverse things that happen here in rural health that you wouldn’t get in a city location.
“Obviously we have Indigenous agencies and the market is there to attract a conference on the Indigenous environmental management.”
The spend by business conference delegates is up to six times higher than tourists, backpackers and grey nomads — retired Australians travelling around the country with a caravan.
In 2014 more than 37 million people attended business conferences and events, international visitors spent on average $440 per day, and Australian delegates spent an average $586.
If those delegates attended a conference in a regional town, that spend would be very much within the area.
“One of the benefits of having it in a regional area is we contain those delegates in close proximity,” Ms Webb said.
“But when they’re contained they are generally in walking distance to their accommodation, to the conference venue, local business, and tourism sites.”
Business conferences outside of major centres hamstrung by facilities and know how
Renee Bennett, a director of Perth-based Encanta Event Management agreed business conferences and events were more lucrative than tourism alone.
“Conference delegates bring in a much higher spend to any economy as opposed to what we call ‘visiting friends and relatives’,” she said.
“When visiting a family member you’re unlikely to spending on accommodation, and you’re probably going to be eating at home a lot more.
“A conference delegate is usually sponsored by their organisation or business, so what we tend to see is that they have more disposable income to actually spend within that local community.
“They do need to stay in a hotel, they need to eat breakfast, they need to go out to dinner. It’s over a shorter time line, but it can really generate a significant multiplier effect that we find travels through that business events community.”
Ms Bennett said regional areas needed to play to their local strengths to attract business conferences.
“An agriculture conference for example, that would work in an agricultural area like Newcastle in New South Wales.
Margaret River in Western Australia is a good area for a wine conference.
“Likewise Port Hedland in the Pilbara should be able to have a mining event.
“It allows delegates to get up close and personal to the topic they’ve focused on, to go on field trips, and technical tours.”
However she warned without precision and planning, a lot could go wrong and have a lasting effect on the region in terms of future events.
“You need to really focus on the infrastructure which ranges from a good transport company to take delegates to and from different venues.
“A bad meal and a non-functional PowerPoint can be a long-term disaster.”
High cost regional airfares stymie industry growth
One of the biggest challenges for regional centres is the high cost of airfares.
It can be cheaper to fly overseas than to fly to regional centres such as Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and Mount Isa in Queensland.
Carriers Qantas and Virgin have been hauled before a Senate Inquiry in Western Australia to explain why internal flight costs are so high.
Qantas has responded by reducing the prices to seven regional towns in WA, but they still remain comparatively high.
Ms Bennett said prices needed to drop to make business conferences in regional centres more viable, but she said prices were part of the problem, but so was distance.
“Sometimes to get to regional centres requires three to four flights for international delegates.
“So you could be talking about 36 hours in the air.
“So it’s far easier for those travellers to go direct to a city centre.”
Governments need to get serious about decentralisation
The central Victorian town of Hamilton is the National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH).
The farming town is around 400 kilometres from Melbourne and has been successfully running rural health and veterinary medicine conferences for years.
The town no longer has an operating airport and head of the NCFH and conference convenor Sue Brumby admitted it could be difficult to entice delegates to drive up to five hours to get there.
Once people actually get to Hamilton they love it; the ambience, the venues and coffee shops,” she said.
“And because we’re an agricultural hub the region can really offer a unique experience in terms of agricultural health and medicine.
“And going out on field visits is what makes the conferences here work.
“They can have that face-to-face experience, with real people, look them in the eye and they learn more.”
Ms Brumby believed there was a strong argument for support from Federal and State Governments as well as industry, to put the infrastructure in place to attract high yielding business conferences and events.
“It is tricky as it obviously costs more so we can’t charge too much for conference fees for example, because we know that people are already committing an extra day, five hours driving here, and five hours driving back.
“But if we’re serious about decentralisation, and trying to help rural and regional communities stay vibrant and active, then that is an area that extra assistance would be greatly appreciated.”
Read more:
2017-09-12: Live Rural and the National Centre For Farmer Health collaborate for series of free workshops on women’s health – The Ararat Advertiser
LIVE Rural and the National Centre For Farmer Health have collaborated to deliver a series of free workshops focusing on women’s health.
Each workshop will focus on different aspects of women’s health and the first 16 to register will receive a free health check with the staff from the National Centre For Farmer Health.
The first workshop will be held on September 14 at the Maroona Recreation Reserve, focusing on diet, nutrition and women’s health.
Money raised from Mellow In The Yellow has assisted in making these workshops free to women living in rural communities.
The workshop has a line-up of great guest speakers and presenters. Sarah Carter will be speaking about the importance of breast care and Jess Fishburn from Gen Health Hamilton with be talking about diet and nutrition.
Tractor and Header Exercises
Farmer Health eNews September 2017
Find out all the latest from the National Centre for Farmer Health
- HMF701 Scholarships OPEN
- Beyond the Fence line Workshops
- Health & Lifestyle Assessments at Henty Field Days
- Wellness Wednesday Topics
View the September 2017 e-News
2017.08.21: Course offers health certificate – Health Victoria Magazine
Farmer Health eNews August 2017
Find out all the latest from the National Centre for Farmer Health
- Dowerin Machinery Field Days – 30-31st August
- Run 4 Farmer Health
- Director’s Blog – Farm Safety Target Zero!
- Wellness Wednesday Topics
Translating agricultural health and medicine education across the Pacific: a United States and Australian comparison study
Populations in agricultural communities requirehealth care that is interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral to address the high rate of workplace deaths, preventable injuries and illness. These rates are compounded by limited access to services and the distinctive personal values and culture of farming populations, which both health and rural practitioners must be aware of to reduce the gap between rural and urban population health outcomes. To address the unique health and medical characteristics of agricultural populations, education in agricultural medicine was established through the College of Medicine and the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa in the USA. The course was initially developed in 1974 for teaching medical students, family medicine residents and nurses, and a postgraduate curriculum was added in 2006 to develop medical/health and rural professionals’ cultural competence to work in agricultural communities. This article reviews the adaptation of the US course to Australia and the educational and practice outcomes of students who completed the agricultural medicine course in either Australia or the USA.
Chronic Disease and Health Risk Behaviours Among Rural Agricultural Workforce in Queensland
Little is known of the lifestyle behaviours and prevalence of chronic disease in the Australian agricultural workforce. This study aimed to assess behavioural risk factors and the prevalence of chronic disease among attendees of agricultural events in rural Queensland.
2017-08-03: Alarming farm health statistics – The West Australian
Nurse and National Centre for Farmer Health representative Jody Morton is based in Eneabba. Picture & article: Jo Fulwood
Being a farmer is the most dangerous occupation in the country.
While it may be a startling claim, National Centre for Farmer Health representative Jody Morton said the statistics don’t lie.
Speaking to more than 130 farmers at the GenAg2017 conference, Ms Morton said 27 per cent of all Australian workplace fatalities were in the farming industry.
She said statistics on agricultural industry injuries did not paint a full picture given many farmers did not report workplace injuries.
“The flow-on effect of these injuries is significant, not only to the person injured but to the business, in terms of cash flow and profitability, the family and even to the community,” she said.
In 2015, there were 16.7 deaths per 100,000 people involved in the agricultural industry, and Ms Morton said this had increased from 16.4 in 2003.
“When we compare this to the mining industry there were 12.4 deaths per 100,000 in 2003, reducing significantly to 4.4 per 100,000 in 2015,” she said.
“All of the other major industries are seeing decreasing death statistics, some quite dramatically — but agriculture is not.
“This is really scary stuff, and often the injuries we see in agriculture are catastrophic.”
Ms Morton said quad bike accidents were the leading cause of deaths on farms, with 11 deaths recorded on farms in 2015.
“Thankfully this number reduced just slightly in 2016, with 10 deaths on farms as a result of quad bikes — but that number is still unacceptable,” she said.
The majority of deaths occur when a quad bike falls on top of the rider, Ms Morton said. “The centre of gravity of a quad bike is quite different than a trail bike,” she said.
“Since 2001, more than 150 Australians have died in quad bike incidents.”
Research also shows the prevalence of cardiovascular health risks for farmers is higher than the national average.
“Farming is perceived as a very active occupation, but it has become a lot more sedentary,” she said.
In terms of emotional health and wellbeing, Ms Morton said people living in rural areas had similar rates of diagnosed mental illness when compared with those living in urban environments but much higher rates of suicide.
“WA and Tasmania have much higher rates of suicides in rural areas,” she said.
Farmers had an increased risk of being involved in unhealthy behaviours such as binge drinking, and an increased risk of injury as a result of the heavy physical demands of farming.
But Ms Morton said implementing simple strategies could change these statistics.
“There is a lot of research showing that health issues in agriculture are cumulative, meaning we can reduce this long-term health impact by doing simple things like not repeatedly jumping off machinery, using respiratory masks, getting enough sleep, not working excessively long hours, and even just looking out for our neighbours and mates,” she said.
The National Centre for Farmer Health provides research outcomes, education, information and service delivery to improve health, wellbeing and safety for farmers and farm workers.
View Article: 2017-08-03: Alarming farm health statistics – The West Australian