Farm Safety in New Brunswick: Practical Steps that Save Lives - Nicole McLaughlin, CRSP, Farm Talk Care

Perley Brewer sat down with Nicole Mclaughlin, CRSP who is a farmer, and safety trainer—to talk about what farm safety looks like on the ground in New Brunswick, and what’s changing.

We cover:
The most common hazards on farms (and why they keep showing up)
Why new worker orientation and supervision are still a major gap
Practical tools now available through FarmTalkCare.ca (checklists, emergency plan template, training resources)
How the industry is evolving—and what that means for health & safety

If you work in agriculture, employ seasonal workers, or support rural communities, this one’s worth a listen.

Transcript

 Perley Brewer   0:10
 Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. Today's podcast guest is Nicole McLaughlin. Welcome, Nicole.
Nicole McLaughlin   0:12
 Yeah.
 Hi, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for the invitation.
Perley Brewer   0:23
 So today's topic is one we've had on our list for quite a while, and we're finally getting the opportunity to get some updates on farm safety. Obviously a very booming sector in our province and one that also presents its own challenges. So let's start, Nichol, with you telling us about yourself a little bit to tell our audience a little bit about who Nichol McLaughlin is and
 What you up to these days?
Nicole McLaughlin   0:48
 All right, thanks, Pearly. So I am doing different things. I am a, I'm a...
 Canadian registered safety professional. I've been working in health and safety for about 16 years, but I'm also a farmer and I do some vegetable boxes for clients in my community. So that
 It keeps me busy in the summertime and in the winter and in the fall. I deliver training. I deliver the joint health and safety committee training through the Workplace Safety School of New Brunswick. I also deliver first aid training through my own business, which is Lunic Safety Training.
 And I also deliver consultation services. So one of the projects that I'm really excited to be working on these days is a farm safety. So I'm helping the organization Agriculture New Brunswick to develop a farm safety program.
 So that's something that's available to all farmers. And just last week, we have the documents on the website site, the Farm Talk Care website.
Perley Brewer   2:11
 Okay, so...
 Where did your interest in farm safety come from? You mentioned you're doing some vegetable growing and so on, but where sort of where was the beginning that you had the interest in sort of that helmet?
Nicole McLaughlin   2:19
 Yeah.
 The.
 Yeah, so I grew up on a farm and I studied agriculture. And I, so I'm an agrologist. And so I've always been really interested, obviously, in farming. And when I, when I finished my master's degree, I ended up working at the
 a community college in Grand Falls in the agriculture program. And at the time, this was kind of, they relaunched the ag program and there was a course that I was teaching on farm safety. So
Perley Brewer   3:05
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   3:06
 I expect that the community colleges have continued to do this, but they were integrating safety in all of their programs. So this was like a full semester course on farm safety. And I found it really interesting. And it made me realize how many things had happened on the farm when I was growing up.
 that, you know, were near misses, you know, or like, yeah, somebody got hurt, but it could have been much worse. And, and it just, yeah, it just made me realize, okay, these accidents happen for a reason. There's a lot of things that we can do to prevent accidents. And so it just kind of continued on from there when my,
 When my work, unfortunately, the agriculture program was cancelled, but almost at the same time, there was a position that opened up at WorkSafe NB. And at WorkSafe NB, I like because I was a bit familiar with it because I had worked at their progressive
 Ag Safety Day, helping them out with that. And so I, you know, anytime that there was a project related to farming, I wanted to be in on that. So, so yeah, I kind of continued on working in farm safety a bit as much as I could when I was at Work Safe NB as well.
Perley Brewer   4:26
 So for folks that are listening today that may not be familiar with the kinds of hazards you would find on a family farm, yes, you grew up on a family farm. I grew up on a family farm as well, so I think we're pretty familiar. But why don't you outline for folks what kind of hazards would you find on a sort of a typical family farm here in the province of New Brunswick?
Nicole McLaughlin   4:47
 Yeah, so one of the things that, yeah, that you look at is the injury statistics. And when you look at that, in the top 10 causes of fatalities on farms, it's across Canada, it's machinery.
 So a tractor rollovers, machinery runovers, being pinned or struck by machine or becoming entangled in a machine. Those are like the top, among the top type 5 causes for fatal accidents. So machinery is a big deal.
 people, you know, getting too close to a ditch, or they're just, yeah, that's a big thing for the tractor rollovers, or, you know, maybe they're not necessarily seeing someone
Perley Brewer   5:40
 Mhm.
Nicole McLaughlin   5:49
 who's maybe very close to the tractor or to the machine and they get run over. People, you know, even with the rollovers, somebody might not, like a lot of tractors these days, they have the cabs and stuff, so
 As long as you're wearing your seat belts, you're not going to get rolled, you're not going to get killed if it does roll over, but people are not wearing that. So, yeah, with the PTOs, like with the tractors, they have a PTO, power takeoff, which takes energy from the tractor and
 and dissipates it into the implement. And so that's turning very fast. And sometimes people, you know, are not thinking, they're trying to do things quickly. They step over that PTO and they get entangled in the machine. So machinery is a big deal. Another
Perley Brewer   6:44
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   6:52
 important hazard are confined spaces. So, you know, people not necessarily realizing that what they're going into is a confined space, not having a procedure in place, and they might be going into like a silo, for instance, and maybe
 the gases, you know, there's toxic gases present. Nobody knows that they're in there and they lose consciousness. And, you know, if they're not found quickly enough, they get killed. The
 Yeah, so the other one, I would say a very important one also is livestock. So working with large animals, they can kick, they can, you know, they're not always predictable. They might
 run someone over. So yeah, we have to be mindful of that. Sometimes we get very comfortable with these animals and with all areas of farm work because we've been doing it for a while and then our guard goes down. But also sometimes it's because people
 are fairly new to the work and don't realize what the hazards are.
Perley Brewer   8:19
 Yeah, when you look at it, the list, you mentioned just really a few of the hazards you find. I mean, you know, the list really could go on, chemicals, a lot of chemicals used on family farms and so on. When you talk about statistics for folks here in our own province that would say, well, yeah, it's good to talk about what's on across Canada, but what kind of accidents have we actually had here in New Brunswick?
Nicole McLaughlin   8:24
 Yes.
 Yes.
 So, the from what I've seen, there's been...
 There were two that were related to tractor rollovers. One was a farmer that had quite a bit of experience, and another one was a farm worker too close to a ditch, I believe, and rolled over. And I don't know if they had
Perley Brewer   8:57
 Mhm.
Nicole McLaughlin   9:12
 a tractor cab, but anyway, they were rolled over. The, another one, a branch came down and struck them. And another one, it was an explosion. So yeah, you're, you're, what, yeah.
 When you talk about chemical hazards, yes, that's an important hazard as well. Someone was transporting compressed gas and there was, anyway, it's, it fell over, I guess, and it exploded.
Perley Brewer   9:32
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   9:48
 And, and a recent one as well was someone got went into a silo where there was equipment that was working.
 and they got caught up in the machine. So it was entanglement. And by the time that they found him, it was too late because nobody, I don't know that people knew that he was in the silo. Before this, like I'm talking a few years ago now, there was a few incidents with
 tractors again or machinery and during the harvest or planting. And one in our region was a young worker and he was picking rocks.
Perley Brewer   10:32
 Mm.
Nicole McLaughlin   10:43
 And they had this method of letting the tractor run without someone on it. And they were like taking turns, hopping on and off the tractor. And this one boy, a 15 year old, oh my gosh,
 He was sitting on the wagon and his pant leg, I think, got caught up in the wheel, the rear wheel. And yeah, he got basically run over. Nobody was on the tractor at the time and couldn't stop it. So yeah, you know, and there was a couple
Perley Brewer   11:06
 Mm.
Nicole McLaughlin   11:24
 where there, it wasn't, there was, well, at least one, it was a man who went into the field, like they were, people have this, they have this thing that they do in our region. And
 When the farmers are harvesting potatoes, they'll go in and they'll pick whatever potatoes are left on the ground, and...
 Farmers, they, they, you know, let people do this, I guess, but it's hard to get people to stop, I suppose. But, you know, he was told by someone to not to go there right now because they were still harvesting. And the truck driver
Perley Brewer   12:06
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   12:18
 didn't see him and he actually ended up running over him. The man didn't listen to him and he continued to harvest potatoes or pick potatoes, you know. So yeah, there's been quite a few.
Perley Brewer   12:27
 So in so in New Brunswick. Yeah. Yeah. So in New Brunswick, you live up in an area that's known for potato harvesting. Where are the other main agricultural sort of areas in our province? Can you sort of tell or not? Or is it all over?
Nicole McLaughlin   12:32
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Oh gosh, yeah, so...
 It's, you know, each region seems to have their specialty. Definitely Northwest is intense with potatoes. And if you go down to the southwest, you'll see more dairy farms.
 On the northeast, it's a lot of blueberry producers. So it's, it is quite different, but I would say concentrated, it is more concentrated, I would say up in the northern, western part of New Brunswick.
Perley Brewer   13:11
 K.
Nicole McLaughlin   13:24
 And if you go further up north, it's a lot of...
 like poultry farms and stuff like that. Yeah.
Perley Brewer   13:35
 Okay. Now, from your work with the Department of Agriculture, do you have any sense as to how big is the farming industry in New Brunswick?
 Or what does, what does it, what does it represent, you know, financially? I mean, do you have any ideas to is, you know, to the sort of the size of it?
Nicole McLaughlin   13:44
 Um...
 I know that the farms are getting bigger. I don't know the amount that it represents, but it definitely is an important part of overall, you know, New Brunswick economy. But like,
Perley Brewer   14:02
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   14:12
 We used to have a lot of small farms and there are still small farms, but a lot of small farms have been bought by larger farms. So we're talking about, you know, it used to be that the average farm was 100 acres. Now it's probably closer to 1000 acres.
Perley Brewer   14:14
 Mhm.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Wow.
Nicole McLaughlin   14:32
 So, and, you know, and that's happened over, I would say, the last 30 years, that it's just become much more concentrated. Yeah.
Perley Brewer   14:40
 Yeah.
 Yeah, yeah, I know that's the case in the Fredericton area. I know a number of farmers and as you say, it's changed so much over the years and now it's a big boy, so to speak, that the big players that actually are running the farms.
Nicole McLaughlin   14:46
 Mm.
 Yeah.
Perley Brewer   15:00
 If we stop and look back over the last decade, what kinds of initiatives have been in place to, and I guess you could start with agricultural safety days, and maybe what kinds of initiatives have been in place to try and improve our farm safety? Could you talk about some of those?
Nicole McLaughlin   15:18
 Yeah, so in response to some of those fatalities I was talking about that happened in Northwest New Brunswick, WorkSafe NB, they made these signs, these yellow signs, to tell people not to go into the field during the harvest. And I see
Perley Brewer   15:36
 Okay.
Nicole McLaughlin   15:40
 those yellow signs, people have put them also on pesticide storage. And so, you know, and I'm not sure, but I think they've been printed again. And that was a collaboration with Potatoes NB, that Work Safe NB did that.
 They also created a farm safety guide, which is available on the website. So that is kind of like a checklist and helps farmers kind of go through the farm and see, okay, what the hazards are and what they can do.
 to reduce the risk.
 And yeah, Work Safe NB began organizing progressive farm safety days. So that was the Progressive Agriculture Safety Day Foundation has curriculum and has this great training anyway to
 basically try to make children aware. Yeah, at a young age, aware about safety units. And it's grown to like when it first started, it was really just talking about things related to farming itself. And it's expanded to include like healthy lifestyles,
 and cyber safety and stuff like that as well. So it's a lot more than it used to be. So when WorkSafe NB started, actually before they started with the Progressive Agriculture Safety Day Foundation,
 They were just doing these like awareness sessions with children. And it was, they tried different ages. So it was like all like from grade one to all the way to grade 12. And they would bring a harvester because at the time,
 there was still a potato break in Carlton County. And so some teenagers would be working there on harvesters and stuff like that. And now we don't have that those that potato break anymore, but
Perley Brewer   17:49
 And.
Nicole McLaughlin   18:06
 But yeah, so it started off like that, but then it expanded to the Progressive Agriculture Safety Days, and that continued on for a while. But I think since the pandemic, WorkSafe NB is not organizing those anymore. And
 I began working on this project through the Farm Talk Care program. So that's through, through, it's a partnership between the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick, the National Farmers Union of New Brunswick and the Really Local Harvest.
 And there's two important facets to that program. One is the mental health and then there's the farm safety. So I've been working on the farm safety side of it. And I have, we now have on the website on the Farm Top
 care.ca website. We have a new worker orientation checklist. We have an emergency plan template that people can use in order to put an emergency plan together on the farm. And
 We have a list of training providers that are available. And we have like a short checklist that people can use in order to kind of, you know, just get an idea of, okay, how safe their farm is. So it's
 It's not to replace the guide, the farm safety guide that WorkSafe NB has, but it was just to kind of make it a little bit shorter. So I find that people tend to like things that are bite size, you know, so, so that's why we
Perley Brewer   20:03
 Mhm.
Nicole McLaughlin   20:05
 we thought, well, we'll do this kind of an abridged version of the Farm Safety Guide. And if people want more information, then they can go to the Farm Safety Guide. We have like a list of those resources that are available as well, like across Canada for when it comes to farm safety.
 And yeah, I'm hope, like I'm working right now actually on a video for new workers. So, and I'm not really sure how to do it. I have a lot of information because I'm trying to go through all the hazards, like a brief overview of all the hazards.
 So there's a lot to it, but I don't want it to be too long. So I might just kind of have like 20 minute segments, you know. And yeah, I hope that farmers will find it useful. I know, and it's not just in farming, but I know a lot of new workers are not
Perley Brewer   20:47
 Mhm.
 Mm-hmm.
Nicole McLaughlin   21:05
 are still not getting orientation. So I'm hoping that these resources will help them, you know, get the orientation that they're supposed to get when they, when they start work.
Perley Brewer   21:17
 So how do folks who listen to the podcast today access that information?
Nicole McLaughlin   21:23
 Yeah, so they can go to the Farm Talk Care website, and that's what it is. It's farmtalkcare.ca. And hopefully it should be, I hope it's easy to find. And there's a tab on Farm Safety. And right now that's the way it looks. And you can just click on that.
 And then those, there's the different topics that are listed and they can just go on there. We also have a farm safety committee. So if there's anybody who's listening that's interested in becoming more involved in farm safety, they can also.
 you know, get in touch with me and we meet about twice a year. We are promoting the safety days as well. So if there's people that are interested in organizing safety days, we have some funding to help with that as well. And the last couple of years, we've also been offering some
 funding for training. So like for first day training or, you know, other training like confined space or fall protection, you know, what, we've had some farmers take us up on that, but I'm surprised that we didn't blow our budget completely.
Perley Brewer   22:27
 OK.
 Mm.
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   22:45
 Because, yeah, anyway, I don't know if maybe it's the timing, maybe people don't realize that they need it, but, but yeah.
Perley Brewer   22:53
 So what's been the reaction of the farming community to all these different initiatives and or in general to farm safety?
Nicole McLaughlin   22:58
 Um...
Perley Brewer   23:01
 Have they gotten the message yet?
Nicole McLaughlin   23:01
 Yeah, so I think that farmers are kind of bombarded with a lot. There's a lot of expectations. And so there's a lot of expectations when it comes to food safety.
Perley Brewer   23:11
 Brian.
 Mm.
Nicole McLaughlin   23:20
 and then animal welfare. And there's the environmental farm plan that farmers need to complete in order to access funding. So I think they feel, a lot of them, they know it's important, but they feel overwhelmed as well.
Perley Brewer   23:37
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   23:39
 A lot of farms, you know, they are bigger, but they do not necessarily have a lot of human resources. It's a challenge to get people to work on farms. It's a lot of physical work. They can't offer necessarily huge salaries. So they're spending a lot of time trying to
Perley Brewer   23:50
 Mm.
Nicole McLaughlin   24:00
 you know, trying to find people to work on the farm. So, you know, every once in a while, like we have some, I would say, leaders in farm safety, people that really, you know, they're working on the farm and they really
 you know, take it seriously and really make sure that people are getting trained and stuff like that. But I think that that will be our next step, will be to really feature those farms that do that so they can see the leadership that
 that those farms are doing. But you know, it is surprising to me sometimes when I went to a farm last week and I saw in the office their health and safety policy. So on this farm, they have, you know, they do have a lot of
Perley Brewer   24:55
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   24:59
 employees in the summertime. And that health and safety policy was updated to 2026. You know, so yeah, they never talked to me about that. I didn't know that they were doing that. But that's one of the, I would say one of the leaders when it comes to farm safety, because they're making sure that
Perley Brewer   25:08
 Yeah, excellent.
 Right.
 Good.
Nicole McLaughlin   25:20
 that their people are trained in first aid, like I see them regularly. Yeah, I think the message is starting to get across. I think also some of the clients, you know, some of their customers are, they're basically telling them, you know, we need you to be doing these things.
Perley Brewer   25:23
 Mm.
 Good.
Nicole McLaughlin   25:41
 So I think that's helping as well. But yeah, it's, I still encounter farmers that don't realize that the Occupational Health and Safety Act also applies to them. So there's a big, you know, there's a wide range of...
Perley Brewer   25:54
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   26:00
 of, I would say, knowledge when it comes to farm safety still.
Perley Brewer   26:05
 Yeah. On a number of the podcasts that I've done, I've talked to different organizations, different companies, and they talk about the challenges of getting workers. From the conversations you've had with farmers, for example, are they bringing in, say, foreign workers, or are they still able to get enough workers in New Brunswick?
Nicole McLaughlin   26:15
 Mm.
 Yes.
 No, a lot of them are bringing in foreign workers. So that adds an extra challenge. So I have a friend that she's gotten some workers from Mexico. And I know the farmer up the road here has also workers from Mexico.
Perley Brewer   26:28
 Yeah.
 Okay.
Nicole McLaughlin   26:41
 really good workers, but there's a language barrier there. So that's another thing actually that we are planning to do with the video. Like all of our all of our documents right now, they're available in French and English.
Perley Brewer   26:41
 OK.
 Mhm.
 Yeah.
 Mhm.
Nicole McLaughlin   27:00
 With the video, we want to also have it so that it can be listened to in other languages, so such as Spanish. Yeah.
Perley Brewer   27:10
 Doing good.
 Okay, so to finish off our podcast, uh...
 Is there any concern that sort of keeps you awake at night or what would be your number one priority as far as, you know, you feel that really needs to be tackled when it comes to farm safety? Is there any sort of one issue or one topic or one area that you really sort of feel that, hey, look, you know, we need to do more on this particular topic?
Nicole McLaughlin   27:28
 Yeah.
 Yeah, you know, I think maybe it's because I'm a mom, but I really feel like new work orientation is sorely lacking, and I don't think it's just in agriculture. But definitely with agriculture being, you know, the 4th most hazardous industry,
Perley Brewer   27:46
 Mm.
Nicole McLaughlin   27:57
 in Canada, and they do hire young people. That is definitely a big concern of mine. So just making sure that people, before they hop on a piece of machinery, that they are well informed. There was a
 a tractor rollover that I talked about earlier in the last five years, that was with an 18 year old. So, you know, that is a big concern, having young people without experience not realizing hazards. So
Perley Brewer   28:26
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   28:36
 I really feel like that should be something that all, you know, farms really need to be emphasizing is a new worker orientation and proper supervision. So I know that farmers are busy and there's a lot going on in the farm, but
 If they have a new worker, they need to be, somebody needs to be supervising them and making sure that they're working safely. And, you know, if something's, and also making sure that there's like an open communication so that
Perley Brewer   29:03
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   29:15
 If the worker feels unsure about how to do something, that they don't, that they're not afraid to speak up and, you know, just say, you know, I have a question or, you know, I don't feel comfortable doing this. So yeah, I think emphasis on new workers, for me anyway,
 That's what I would, I would like to see.
Perley Brewer   29:40
 Now, you mentioned from a perspective as a mother, I grew up in a family farm, like you said, and we talked about earlier. And I remember being really quite heavily involved, so to speak, you know, from the age of, you know, probably 10, 11, 12. And I still see people posting on social media of them having kids, you know, in some cases, 8, 9, 10.
Nicole McLaughlin   29:44
 Mm.
 Yes.
 Mhm.
 Mm.
 Yeah.
Perley Brewer   30:11
 They're trying to display, you know, I'm sort of proud of my kids for getting involved and getting involved at an early age. But you know, boy, it scares me to a point that I see kids on these big tractors and I see them around the heavy equipment and I think, oh boy, we're exposing kids. And yeah, I admit we did her back when I was young.
Nicole McLaughlin   30:16
 Yeah.
Perley Brewer   30:31
 We are exposing kids to a lot of hazards at a very early age when it comes to family farms, more so than in other industries. We wouldn't think of putting an 11-year or a 12-year-old in an industrial setting or in a sawmill, but family farms, that's sort of an accepted culture.
Nicole McLaughlin   30:36
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 That's such a good point. And, you know, it's, it wasn't okay when we did it years ago. And it certainly hasn't become okay now to do that. There's a reason why children are, you know,
Perley Brewer   30:56
 No.
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   31:08
 you can't get your license before you're 16. So really, there, yeah, no, it's not acceptable. But we did the same thing at home too. You know, when I was growing up, but I think we know better now and we shouldn't
Perley Brewer   31:12
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
Nicole McLaughlin   31:27
 There's been too many accidents, and we shouldn't be allowing that to continue.
Perley Brewer   31:29
 Yeah.
 Well, look, Nichol, I'd like to thank you very much, obviously, for the work you're doing in the farming community. That's still very much close to my heart. And certainly like to thank you for being on our podcast today.
Nicole McLaughlin   31:44
 Well, thank you very much. And yeah, thanks for giving me this opportunity to spread information about farm safety.
Perley Brewer   31:49
 Yeah.
 So again, thank you to Nichol for being on our podcast and for taking the time to share the work she's doing with the Department of Agriculture. To our listeners, stay safe, have a good week, and we'll see you again next week.