Safety focus on cold rooms and cherry pickers

Feb 24, 2025

A new project will target safety in cold rooms and cherry pickers.

Fruit Growers Victoria, with funding from the Victorian Government’s Farming Safe and Well Program, has announced its newest safety and training project.

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“We are thankful for receiving the generous grant from the department to work on the identified priorities — cherry pickers and cold rooms have been particular points of concern for safety in the industry,” project co-ordinator Rowan Farren said.

“We hope this training material can provide support for supervisors to improve the safe, appropriate use of these tools in the workplace.”

The project has provided not only information, but accessible formats to ensure all can benefit from the project.

“Underlying our project was improvement for safety, and accessibility of information and training for the culturally and linguistically diverse community who make up a significant part of our local agriculture workforce,” Mr Farren said.

“We engaged with community representatives, to provide advice, and audio recording to ensure that as many people as possible could access the training, regardless of their English skills.”

Victorian Agriculture Minister Ros Spence emphasised safety was essential to the long-term sustainability and productivity of Victoria’s fruit industry.

“Fruit growers work with heavy machinery, handle insecticides, and operate complex equipment, all of which can pose serious risks if not managed safely,” she said.

“These training videos are a vital tool to help prevent workplace accidents and represent just one of the many steps we’re taking to make Victorian farms safer for everyone involved.”

Grower services manager Michael Crisera was positive about the project, hopeful it will broaden knowledge and safety adherence.

“It’s been great to partner with Agriculture Victoria, WorkSafe and our growers to produce videos on two key parts of our industry — cherry pickers and cold rooms, hopefully there are more opportunities to build our library of safety materials for our members, especially resources that are multilingual,” he said.

Public access of the materials can be found on the Fruit Growers Victoria website, with translated materials into the five priority languages being available for audio and subtitles.