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Moorabool police will investigate how a Greendale man died after being crushed by a hay bale on Sunday.
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According to Victoria Police Media, it's understood a 64-year-old Greendale man was working on a private property on Long Gully Road when the incident occurred.
Police will now prepare a report for the coroner
Due to the scale of the operation, WorkSafe will not be investigating as it does not oversee accidents on country blocks and small-scale hobby-farms.
Nevertheless, farming represents one of the most dangerous occupations in Victoria, utilising only two per cent of the Victorian workforce but is over-represented in the toll with 14 per cent of workplace deaths.
Across Victoria in 2022, 24 people died following a traumatic workplace incident and a further 17 died due to work-related road collision according to WorkSafe.
Of these 26 or almost half, occurred in regional Victoria, with eight deaths occurring in agriculture - making it one of the worst occupations for fatalities after transport.
According to WorkSafe, males also make up more than 90 per cent of those killed with almost two-thirds were aged 55 or older at the time of their death in 2022.
In July 2020, a 60-year-old farmer died at nearby Myrniong after his tractor rolled on a property. It is believed he was slashing on uneven ground when the incident occurred.
In May 2022, a 54-year-old man died while attempting to unload a bulk seed bag into a semi-trailer at Crowlands, near Ararat, when the farm worker was pinned against the top of the trailer and a bag shifted after being lifted from a truck by a large agricultural forklift.
![The scene at Crowlands last year. The scene at Crowlands last year.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/xZTdZ6tEPcDnFXvZB8aTeZ/7524e719-e451-4c42-92d7-be7665cf46df.jpg/r0_0_1920_1079_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Of the farm fatalities in the past decade, 79 per cent were associated with vehicles.
From 2019 to 2021, 24 people died in farm workplace incidents across the state, while 424 people working in agriculture - or about eight people each week - were injured seriously enough to lodge a worker's compensation claim.
During the same period, there were 28 agriculture-related injury claims accepted by WorkSafe from the Central Highlands area (encompassing the City of Ballarat, Golden Plains Shire, Hepburn Shire, Pyrenees Shire, Moorabool Shire and Ararat Rural City).
In 2021 there were two tractor accidents in the region less than 48 hours - a woman in her 50s was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital after being trapped under a tractor at Ross Creek on February 15, while a man in his 70s was taken to hospital with leg injuries following an accident at Magpie on February 16.
The Greendale death is not being treated as suspicious, and police will now prepare a report for the coroner.
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The death follows a man's body found in Ballarat East on Saturday night, which police said was not being treated as suspicious, and a fatal crash in Bannockburn Saturday morning.
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