The Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef is teaming up with other ag organizations to improve the health and safety of farmers and ranchers, and others working in the beef industry.
The effort is part of the 2030 Canadian Beef Goals, a series of goals supported by several industry groups that aim to improve everything from greenhouse gas emissions to beef quality and food safety. The health and safety of people is one topic, with a goal of creating a culture of safety across the beef supply chain. The industry also aims to educe serious, fatal and fatigue-related incidents by 1.5 per cent per year by 2030, and support education, awareness and improvements in farm and ranch safety.
“The definition of beef sustainability is a socially responsible, environmentally sound and economically viable product that prioritizes planet, people, animals and progress,” says Monica Hadarits, chair of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB), speaking at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference in B.C. earlier this year. “It is important that the goals include all aspects of the beef system, including people’s health and safety.”
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Hadarits is the group leader of the health and safety 2030 beef industry goals. She says the research and data that they are basing their goals on came from the National Workforce Strategic Plan and the University of Guelph. However, she says they have found important data gaps, which they plan to address.
The working group includes people from the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, Do More Agriculture Foundation and CRSB. CRSB’s website notes that while Canadian beef production ranks as “low-risk for most indicators of working conditions,” areas for improvement include “rights of temporary foreign workers, fatality rates at the supplier level, wages for retail and food-service workers and workload for farmers and ranchers.”
“This group is in the process of developing an action plan to measure and track progress and has identified awareness of the goal as a priority and starting point,” Hadarits says.
“The working group will meet quarterly, and as we head into the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, will be coordinating to ensure alignment in research, data, metrics and programming to advance the goals.”
Hadarits says the health and safety working group is facing a few issues.
“Bringing this topic to the forefront for funding is one challenge given the current attention on environmental priorities,” she says. “Some metrics are also difficult because you can’t measure something that was prevented.”
Like many other 2030 beef industry goals, Hadarits says the health and safety goals are long-term goals that require a change in both behaviour and culture.
“There are initiatives in the works to increase the availability of mental health support in rural locations.”
