New data shows 'really significant' shift in farm death rates

Safe Work Australia has redesigned its preliminary fatalities dashboard to enable new insights into fatal injuries, and has released the first preliminary fatalities data for 2024.

The preliminary fatalities dashboard shows the latest estimate of workers fatally injured in Australian workplaces.

The dashboard provides data on the number of deaths that have occurred by industry and includes a breakdown of data by mechanism.

There is also now a 5-year average displayed to support comparisons over time.

The key findings from the 2023 preliminary data was that across all sectors there were 173 worker fatalities, with 75 of them due to the mechanism 'vehicle accident'.

But 64 per cent (111) of these fatalities occurred in three of the 19 industry categories: transport, postal and warehousing; construction and agriculture, forestry and fishing.

While agriculture has been the sector with the second highest number of fatalities on the five-year average (2018-2022), construction overtook ag last year, with 31 deaths, compared to primary production's 20.

Transport, postal and warehousing had the highest number of deaths by sector in 2023, with 60, ahead of its five-year average of 54.

Farmsafe Australia executive officer Stevi Howdle said the figures for the ag sector were pleasing.

"Any year that we see a reduction in fatalities is pleasing," she said.

"It's why Farmsafe Australia is in this landscape - to reduce the incidence of fatality and injury on Australian farms."

Mr Howdle said unfortunately it was too early to say it was an overall trend in agriculture.

"My only note of caution is that at this stage, we can't call it a trend," she said.

"It's the first really significant reduction we've seen in the last 20 years.

"We've seen reductions before and then the year after the figures have bounced back."

Ms Howdle believes there's a few reasons behind the pleasing figures.

"We would hope it's increased awareness of safety, the increasing conversations about risk assessment and improved safety culture on farm that's driving it," she said.

"Farmsafe Australia has led national campaigns in the media and all the states and commodity groups are doing a lot of work in the area."

Ms Howdle is hopeful this past year's improvement becomes a long-term trend in the future.

"Unfortunately this year hasn't started off well," she said.

"Obviously farming has a high risk profile but there's no reason why our people can't come home safely."

According to the Safe Work Australia data there have already been two deaths in the sector this year.

In February in South Australia, emergency services responded to a report a man had been run over by an unmanned tractor. The man had been working on the tractor adjacent to the Old Sturt Highway in the Riverland region.

An 87-year-old man from Glossop was taken to the Berri Hospital and was later transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital but sadly died from his injuries.

A dairy farmer from Victoria also died in February during the state's destructive storms.

Farmsafe Australia will put out its yearly Safer Farms report in July, and this report tracks both injury and fatality statistics nationally and by state, as well as recording safety trends among Australian farmers.