How one grain grower survived a vehicle rollover and the lessons he learned.

Snapshot

Owners: Mark and Tamara Modra
Location: Southern Eyre Peninsula, South Australia
Area: 2000 hectares (1200 to 1600ha cropping)
Average annual rainfall: 400 to 500 millimetres
Soil types: buckshot gravel to red-brown earths
Soil pH range: 5.0 to 7.0
Crops grown: canola, cereals, lentils, faba beans, lupins
Enterprises: grains, Merino wool and crossbred lambs

Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, grain grower Mark Modra can recall almost every detail of the vehicle rollover that left him in hospital with a broken back – and the work schedule that led up to it.

“I came up to a fork in the road and, when I turned, I realised I wasn’t going to make it – I hit a lump of road material that got me airborne and, as I rolled over, the top of the ute cab hit a tree and crushed the roof down to the bottom of the window,” he says.

At the time, Mark was working very long hours on an enterprise that was spread over five different properties in the southern part of the Eyre Peninsula, with a drive of about 70 kilometres from top to bottom and a three-year rotation based around canola, cereals, legumes and crossbred lambs.

“I was crutching and jetting sheep and weaning lambs by day and windrowing canola by night – running on about four hours of split sleep. After day four or five I knew I was pushing it,” he says.

“I was driving up to take over the windrowing and remember thinking that my reflexes were affected.

“After I crashed, I managed to crawl out of the ute and rang my machinery operator, Robbie, who’d been on the windrower and was knocking off to head home. He picked me up and took me to hospital, where they discovered I’d fractured five vertebrae.”

He spent the next six weeks on his back with plenty of time to reflect on the circumstances leading up to the accident.

The ute that Eyre Peninsula grower Mark Modra rolled in 2020 after working very long days. Photo: courtesy Mark Modra

Five properties with different local conditions means a lot of travel to get different crops harvested at the right time. In the south, moisture from the sea breeze can cut the daily wheat harvesting window to a couple of hours, so they use a grain dryer and combine lower-moisture wheat from a northern property to hit delivery parameters, but logistically it involves more work.

Windrowing canola is an early harvest priority, but Mark says everything stops when the lentils are ready.

“We drop everything when the lentils are ready because any sort of weather damage can cut their value drastically. After we finish lentils, we go back to canola, then on to our wheat, followed by lupins and beans,” he says.

With only one full-time employee and another helping at seeding and harvest time, he says moving the machinery across five properties stretches them.

“I try to farm in blocks that have different crops, to minimise machinery movement, but sometimes we simply don’t have enough people to do the machinery escorts, so my wife will help.”

Mark Modra counts his blessings in hospital in 2020. Photo: courtesy Mark Modra

The distances make it time-consuming. “It’s a 50-minute drive top-to-bottom in a normal vehicle but a lot longer with machinery, and it’s getting more difficult because, by law now, we have to have an escort in front and behind.”

He says he would use contractors, but there are very few in his area. “The short harvest window and the problems with grain moisture discourage contracting.”

Before his accident in 2020, Mark knew he would have to find a replacement for his highly valued long-term employee and had already discovered how difficult that was going to be.

“I was just unable to find a replacement for him. We were expecting to pay $30 to $40 an hour, plus house and vehicle for the right person, and I advertised around the country, but didn’t get any bites at all.”

As he recovered from his injuries, he considered how to make the enterprise more manageable so he did not put himself at risk again.

“It was really quite frustrating because I was wondering ‘how can I get out of this?’ I’ve done all I can to try and find staff and I was advertising, even after my accident, trying to find more help but found it very difficult, and still am.”

As a result, he is restructuring to further cut travel time by consolidating his operations.

“I’m leasing out two properties, so we’ll only be running three, and most of the land is together, so that should cut travel to about 30 to 35km. I’ve also gone from 1600 ewes to about 500. I’ll see how that goes and, if I can’t manage that, I might have to lease more land,” he says.

He is reluctant to be too prescriptive about the hours he or anyone else should work, stressing that everyone’s capacity is different. But he realises his capacities have changed. “When I was younger, I could get by on four hours of sleep a night.

“Going back to my accident, perhaps I should have been driving slower, realising my reflexes weren’t at their best, but really, I should have just said, ‘I’m not doing a split shift of four hours at night. That’s just not good for me’.”

Fatigue risks

Susan Brumby, who was the founding director of the National Centre for Farmer Health, where she remains a research fellow, says fatigue is sometimes seen as a normal part of farming. “There can be a belief that, at certain times of the year, that’s just how it is – and often decisions around when and how you harvest or sow have huge economic ramifications, so that can be a driving force,” Ms Brumby says.

“Fatigue exacerbates risk-taking behaviour, and people under pressure are less likely to make good decisions around safety because fatigue makes it more difficult to assess the risks,” she says.

She says the expense and complexity of modern machines can make growers less inclined to take a risk by employing someone. “Another aspect is that, historically, families often stepped in to help – whether that was partners or children – but the complexity of machinery makes that more difficult, which also adds to the fatigue burden.”

Fatigue exacerbates risk-taking behaviour

Fatigue should be regarded as one aspect of a wider approach to farm safety, she says. “People often don’t recognise the huge economic impost that an injury or an event like a heart attack can have, so it’s important to make sure that general health, wellbeing and safety is included as part of running the farm business, just as much as the timeliness of the farm production system.”

Mark has recently employed a young man full time, and believes the agricultural sector should be addressing its chronic labour shortage through novel approaches to training.

“We need a system that gives specific training in jobs. For example, a course in GPS and machinery driving, so you can teach people how to use a chaser bin and operate a header,” he says.

He realises he is lucky to have survived his accident and has this advice for fellow growers: “Know your limits and understand how they change”.