Making Farm Work Easier and Safer as we get Older

The Making Farm Work Easier as We Get Older workshop program aims to:

• Help older farmers to acknowledge the ageing process and its impact on their work life on their farm or property
  
• Help farmers to understand a little more about the common effects of the ageing process on physical and mental processes
  
• Help farmers to identify the jobs that are getting harder for them to because of the ageing process
• Help older farmers to take action to achieve two outcomes:
  • To make the older person fit for the job; and 
  • To make the job fit for the older person

The target group for the program is farmers over the age of around 55 years. If younger farmers are interested that would be good, as some changes could be planned for the near future.

The Older Farmers who have devised and steered this program have been firm that the program will be effective only if farmers are assisted to think through their recent farm work and life experiences, in the context of helping them achieve their own goals at this stage of their life.

The Workshop is NOT about Occupational Health and Safety, although if older farmers take the desired action the ultimate result will be improved safety on their farmers for themselves and others.

The Workshop is NOT about being told what to do by experts. The principle for this program is that the farmers themselves are the experts.  Indeed, there is strong evidence that the effects of ageing are very variable between people and the impacts on efficient and safe work are similarly very different between farmers of similar age.

The Workshop is a very practical workshop where farmers will discuss the farm work that is getting harder as they get older, and will provide opportunity to thinks about the ways that older farmers can get MORE FIT FOR FARM WORK as older people, as well as ways that farm work can be made MORE FIT FOR THE OLDER FARMER.

A package of information will be made available that has been put together by groups of older farmers all around Australia, helped by people in the Australian Centre for Agricultural Health and Safety at Moree, in country NSW.

All older farmers who have been part of the program to date have found the experience very worth while, and have found some satisfaction in realising that their increasing difficulties in some areas of work are not unique to them. 
“I feel more normal”
“I can make some changes that will be useful.”
“I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to discussion these practical things with other farmers of my age”
If you are interested in holding a workshop in your area please contact us.

The workshops take approximately 3 hours and include a light meal.