As a nation we’ve done an amazing job to get this far, this fast, leaving almost all other countries in our wake. We’re lucky, we’re small, nimble and we care deeply about the country we call home. But we’re not out of the woods yet and the risks associated with Level 3 are real.Level 3 sets out the following obligations for all businesses, which includes farmers.
“Workplaces must operate safely – maintain physical distance between workers, recording who is working together, limiting interaction between groups of workers, disinfecting surfaces, and maintaining high-hygiene standards.”
For most farmers it’s all largely business as usual, however there are a few things we should, as an industry, be doing better….
From today contractors, RPs, sales reps and other parties will want to come and see you and you now have an obligation to keep and maintain accurate records to assist with contract tracing should we get further spread of the disease. It’s NAIT, but for humans….
Technology has a key role to play in managing this recording process and we’ve spent a lot of time and effort thinking about the problem and how we can help.
Back in 2019 we launched SafeFarm and SafeVisit with our partner Farmlands. The system is focused on solving Health and Safety issues on farm and it’s the perfect platform for helping the New Zealand Primary sector through Level 3.
SafeFarm is free to Farmlands shareholders. All of the SafeFarm functionality is included in all of our current packs. SafeVisit, which is the companion pack to SafeFarm is free to the industry and can be downloaded from App Store / Google Play right now.
The combination of SafeFarm and SafeVisit allows you to:
- Approve visits to your farm before people arrive
- Remotely induct visitors without them needing to interact with anyone
- Keep track of where visitors are on farm
- Maintain accurate records of who visited when and why
SafeFarm takes perhaps 30 mins to set up and we’ll hold your hand through every step. SafeVisit is simply an app that your visitors need to download and use to request a visit.
Covid-19 is awful and we’re going to be living with the effects for a long time, but with every cloud there’s a silver lining, and maybe Covid is the impetus we all need to update and upgrade our on farm health and safety systems to keep New Zealand safe.
If you want to talk to someone about SafeFarm or SafeVisit call 0800 FARMIQ.
