The paperwork associated with safe farming practice can be intimidating at the best of times.

So Phillip John’s program, a joint initiative of WorkSafe Tasmania and the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, lifted a significant burden from farmers’ shoulders.

Mr John grew up on a dairy farm in South Riana, where he learnt the importance of sound on-farm safety measures.

“The main crux of the program is to encourage the safety conversation, and to get people talking and thinking about it rather than putting it in the too-hard basket,” Mr John said.

Safe Farming offers practical safety knowledge to farmers, and works with industry stakeholders to better equip them to address safety issues.

Mr John conducts on-site visits to help clients identify problem areas on their properties.

He provides farmers with crucial documentation and media such as hazard checklists, induction checklists and safety awareness videos.

“The documentation side of things puts people off,” Mr John said.

“So one of my major challenges is to try and simplify that for them.

“If I go and sit down with a farmer and have a discussion with them, I pretty much lead with a basic safety management system.

“And all they have to do then is change it to suit their individual requirements, fine-tune it and then implement it.”

He said part of the motivation for kick-starting Safe Farming was the problem that quad bikes posed on Tasmanian farms.

Indeed, quad bikes are the biggest safety risk on Australian farms more broadly.

“Every farmer I sit down with, we have that discussion about quad bikes and talk about how to manage safety in regards to those,” Mr John said.

Primary Industries Minister Jeremy Rockliff said “significant gains” had been made through the program.

He said hundreds of requests for Safe Farming advice had been lodged.

Armidale Stud owner Robyn Whishaw said the program’s focus on demystifying safety practice had been “a terrific help”.

“The work [Mr John] does in this area is invaluable,” she said.

In 2016, an inquiry into the deaths of seven quad bike-riders across the state was held in the Coroners Court.

Safe Farming was born of the state government’s Cultivating Prosperity imperative, which is styled as a “vision” for Tasmania’s agriculture sector to 2050.