This is National Farm Safety and Health Week, and this year’s theme is “Protecting Agriculture’s Future”.  Laura Siegel with AgriSafe said the health and safety of workers must be the cornerstone of sustainable farming this week and year-round.

 

She noted that statistics show there’s been a large increase in the number of children injured on the farm in recent years.  She said this often happens on family operations where children are often around vehicles, implements and animals.

 

“So, even if the kids aren’t working on the farm, they’re still around it.  So, we really need to teach them how to be safe around these machines.  Maybe you rode around on the tractor with your grandpa and it was great, we don’t want to teach them that tractors are fun, we need to teach them that tractors are dangerous.  And once they’re old enough to be around tractors, then we can start to train them how to properly use them.” 

 

All this week, AgriSafe will host free webinars to cover a breadth of topics, including tractor and roadway safety, grain bin safety, wildfire and heat safety and much more.  Visit AgriSafe's Website for a list of all the webinars, or to participate.  And for the non-ag community, Siegel says it’s very easy to participate in National Farm Safety and Health Week.

 

“If they see a farmer, or a rancher, just to let them know that they appreciate them and the hard work that they do.  Because they are the people who feed us and who take care of us, so, just showing that we appreciate farmers and ranchers can go a really long way.”

 

Agriculture is known as one of the most dangerous industries in the United States.  According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, about 100 ag workers suffer a lost-work-time injury every day, and in 2019, the ag industry had a fatality rate of 19.4 deaths per 100,000 workers.

 

 

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com 

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