Headline: Culture of Safety Key for Exemplary Farm
Byline: Amy Petherick
Word Count:659
Forward thinking has brought Cornwallis Farms a long way from their humble start in 1761. As they approach the transition of their farm to the 10th generation in the family, their success appears well rooted in an exemplary business culture on the leading edge of safety practices.
Cornwallis Farms Ltd., located in Port Williams, Nova Scotia, is a family-owned operation that was incorporated in 1982 and is currently operated by two brothers, Craig and Brian Newcombe, along with their families. Their operation has grown more self-sufficient and complex with every generation. Today it includes dairy,poultry (both layers and broilers), about 1,700 acres of crop, and on-farm milling operations.Craig’s wife, Geneve, says the family works together to produce high quality products through both their poultry and dairy food safety programs.
“As with any place, there’s always room for improvement andall kinds of ways to better ourselves,” says Mrs. Newcombe. “We’realways open to new technology and ideas.”
Cornwallis Farms already has a Nutrient Management Plan, as well as an Environmental Farm Plan. Following an energy audit, they recently installed new lighting and a solar wall in their barns.Last year, they signed up for a field test with the Canadian Agricultural Safety Associationto develop a customized Farm Safety Planfor their farm with Carolyn Van Den Heuvel, a Canada FarmSafe Advisor.Mrs. Newcombe saysthey employ approximately sevenpeople and believe being keen on safety gives them an edge as employers, so she hopes to havethe new plan fully implemented this spring. “Implementation is going slowly, but steady,” says Mrs. Newcombe. “There are numerous procedures and safety areas to be looked at as a large farm, so there’s a great deal of work that needs to be done.”
Van Den Heuvel says the Newcombesgo above and beyond, really doing their best to be ideal employers. One of the keys to their success has been sharing implementation responsibilities, which has produced tremendous employee buy-in. Nearly all the staffvolunteered for first aid training and quickly elected a farm safety officer. “They already had meetings on a regular basis and they incorporated safety right from my first visit,” says Van Den Heuvel.She’s currently working with 11 farms across the province and says Cornwallis Farms is an amazing match for this pilot program, having implemented a number of programs on the farm before. She hopes the family can inspire other farmers to follow their lead and adopt their own cultural changes.
“Safety is on the forefront of a lot of industries, and farmers have started working towards enhancing their on-farm safety practices,”Van Den Heuvel says. But she knows that it’s hard for farmersto find time to sit down and write plans specific to their operations. She advises people to keep things as simple as possible and cross reference other standard operating procedures or quality assurance programs for help. But even when the process is simplified, she admits it is still a lot of work. Mrs. Newcombe says though daunting,she believes the effort is well worth the time invested.
“Going through the process definitely makes us more aware of safety,”says Mrs. Newcombe. “Hopefully it will reduce our risk of an incident and, if we were to have an incident, make us better prepared to deal with it.”
On Cornwallis Farms, safety is as important as quality assurance andconsidered a key component to a successful and forward thinking farm. In this case, a new plan only further supports old wisdom.
GeneveNewcombe is a speaker at FarmSafe Forum Nova Scotia, a farm safety training workshop being held in Truro, Nova Scotia on March 13th, 2013 in conjunction with Canadian Agricultural Safety Week (CASW). CASW is delivered by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA), the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA), and exclusive corporate sponsor Farm Credit Canada (FCC), with support from the Government of Canada through Growing Forward, a federal, provincial, territorial initiative.