Together with the agricultural industries and Queensland Health, Safe Food Production Queensland (Safe Food) has developed a guideline for agricultural, horticultural, and meat and livestock processing businesses to help them understand the risks of COVID-19 to their workforce, and describe the measures that can be implemented when any of these risks are realised.
The guideline:
- Provides clear definitions of the different categories for workers exposed to COVID-19;
- Provides guidance on how to estimate the risk from each of those workers; and
- Outlines mitigating actions that can be implemented in the event of workers being exposed to COVID-19 and the proactive measures that should be taken to protect the workforce and manage the risk into the future, which can be used to inform risk assessment decisions.
This Guideline should be used in conjunction with the Checklist for Reducing Workforce Impact from COVID-19.
The Checklist helps production facilities, farms and packing sheds assess their risk management measures for COVID-19.
Both documents have been developed on behalf of the Queensland Agriculture Coordination Group – Workplace Health and Safety Working Group.
Due to the rapidly evolving situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, this Guideline and the Checklist will be reviewed on a regular basis.