Farming Safety and How Agriculture Flourishes with Proper Inspections

All those involved in the farming and agriculture industry know that good times don’t always last. So how do you prepare for bad crop years, illnesses in livestock or machinery incidents that you didn’t see coming? Farming safety inspection has long been the way that those in agriculture choose to mitigate future risks to the best of their ability. With mobile devices, farming safety has today reached a new level of occupational welfare; machinery becomes safer to use and future incidents can at times be completely avoided.?

?As one of the backbones of many nations and local economies around the globe, agriculture is a keystone part of society. Unfortunately, even with all the best tools, machinery and workforce, sometimes bad years are unavoidable. Things happen which take their toll on profitability, livelihood, safety and future operations. For farmers, this can be devastating in an industry where organisations operate with fine margins. Many are therefore looking for ways in which to improve knowledge and information in order to predict future events and reduce unnecessary incidents. When mother nature is making things difficult, the last thing that anyone needs is for machinery or equipment to fail due to improper maintenance or lack of service. Farmers and those in the agricultural industry are hence turning to technology to try to solve some of their issues. For farming safety, digital inspection is fast becoming the go-to solution to help improve the safety of a location, operation or workforce. Alongside standards set by best practice and industry regulators, digital inspection is allowing for detailed check of processes and assets to reduce risk of operations.

?In Australia, the farming industry is helped by national, state/territory and local legislation that helps to set the rules for safe farming. Often these prove sufficient along with some best practice, but at times independent standards such as those published by Standards Australia aid the industry further. Standards Australia publish regulations such as AS 5340:2020; ‘Livestock loading/unloading ramps and forcing pens’, to help minimise the chance of an accident but rely on farmers being able to use their standard in the right way. Organisations such as Standards Australia are now making it increasingly easy and suitable to use digital inspection platforms to make checks in line with their regulations as best as possible. Taking advantage of features of mobile devices such as the camera to take pictures, scan barcodes or use RFID; speech-to-text services for rapid hands-free data entry; or GPS timestamps for additional inspection data showcases why digital inspection has become the industry-leading choice for inspection. Often checklists can be created to be directly complying with industry standards, but in the case that a more general inspection is being carried out, the standard can often be attached as reference material; next to previous inspection data or any other manual needed. There is also space for guidance from other organisations like the Australian Livestock & Rural Transporters Association (ALRTA), another such organisation working to improve farming safety.

?Improving farming safety is vital to maintaining industry competitiveness and excellence, whilst also ensuring considerate and responsible operations. For those in the agricultural industry, mobile inspection is becoming a powerful tool to the inspector and decision-maker, putting data at the heart of strategy and likewise keeping workers safe. In an industry of fine margins, it always pays to take necessary precautions to avoid potentially disastrous combination of bad luck. For more information about paperless farming safety inspection solutions, or to learn more about the integration of Standards Australia regulations with paperless systems in your organisation or business, visit Pervidi.com.au

?To learn more about AS 5340:2020, please visit:

www.standards.org.au/news/supporting-the-safety-of-farmers-and-their-livestock