Danger on the farm

Common agricultural hazards and how visual communication can help

For many of us who live in cities, food-producing farms are an abstraction, evoking imagery of green pastures or rows of crops, a red barn, a grain silo and placid animals. The reality is far different: heavy lifting, machinery use, hazardous materials (pesticides and other chemicals) and driving on rough terrain are the reality for the typical farmer and farm worker. It may surprise many non-farmers to learn that the hazards found in agriculture are related to many common hazards found in general industry. The difference is that it often takes an ambulance longer to reach the injured farm worker.

Kevin Pfau

DuraNews recently caught up with Kevin Pfau, senior safety management consultant at SAIF Corporation, a major workers’ comp fund in Oregon, to ask him about farm safety. Kevin teaches about 20 agricultural safety seminars throughout Oregon every year and understands better than most the everyday hazards faced by farmers and farm workers.

DuraNews: The U.S. Bureau of Labor reported that farming was the fourth deadliest profession in 2011, with more than 41 deaths per million workers. Based on your experience, what are the most common lethal hazards?

Kevin Pfau: There are many. Immediately I think of equipment hazards, especially machinery entanglements and tractor overturns. Grain bin entrapments are also responsible for many deaths. Electrocution is quick and deadly hazard, often caused by tall equipment like grain augers, tractors with front-end loaders, forklifts and large combines that come into contact with overhead lines. And farm animal incidents, such as falling off horses or getting charged by dairy bulls, can also cause fatalities.

DN: What are some of the most overlooked agricultural hazards, and how can they be avoided?

KP: I know of an incident where a squirrel was hiding in an irrigation pipe and the farmer was helping a worker shake it out. Unfortunately the pipes were stacked right under a power line. The worker was electrocuted and died; the farmer was injured. Give power lines their proper respect and always use pre-planned routes that avoid power lines when moving equipment.

 With respect to livestock, dairy bulls may be very expensive but they need to be put down once they become aggressive. They will attack and kill with the slightest provocation.

Tractor overturns are the leading cause of agricultural deaths in the U.S., but fatalities would be reduced by 71 percent if all tractors in the U.S. had roll-over protective structures (ROPS). My family’s onion farm is a case in point. Due to the low profit margins, and my family’s resistance to buying anything new when the old tractor still worked, we used older model tractors without rollover protection for decades. We were lucky nothing happened. Older models should be used for light loads on level terrain by experienced operators.

Another often-overlooked hazard is ATV use. Quads are a high risk way to move people. In many cases quads are used when pick-up trucks or RTVs (ATVs with rollover protection) would be much safer choices. Especially when younger drivers are involved.

DN: With respect to visual communication (signs and labels), what are some of the most important ways they can be employed at some of the farms you’ve seen?

KP: The most important signs are ones that are placed as an instructive reminder on or near serious hazards. For example, adhesive labels on forklifts could read, “No riders.” Other ideas: “Forklift only,” “Pinch-point,” “Apply parking brake” or “Slow: High-traffic area.” GHS*-aligned Hazcom labels with pictograms are also very important when dealing with pesticides or other hazardous materials. Instructive signage should be duplicated in Spanish at farms that employ Spanish-speakers.

DN: If visual communication is an underused safety tool, why is that?

KP: Inconvenience and cost. When farmers understand the importance of proper signage and labeling requirements, and when these signs are made readily available, however, they prove to be popular.

DN: Can you point to any particular agricultural tragedy that could have been avoided if proper visual communication were implemented?

KP: I visited with an employee who used a propane-powered forklift to organize bins in a cold storage room. After first suffering from a severe headache, he lost consciousness and was rushed to the emergency room where he was treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. He almost lost his life. Six months later, this same type of incident occurred with another employee. Only after the second incident did the employer provide training and install the sign: “Warning: No propane forklift in cooler.”

* GHS: The United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for the Identification and Labeling of Hazardous Materials requires a label with signal word, pictograms, hazard statements and precautionary statements.

Try the DuraLabel Toro for any labeling task on the farm, in the field, or in the warehouse. The Toro has a 3.5-hour continuous-print battery life and requires no computer or outside power source to operate.

Originally published here: http://www.duralabel.com/duranews/2013/mar/danger-farm