Pike County Times

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PO Box 843, Zebulon, Georgia 30295. You can donate through PayPal at the link on the bottom of the page. Becky Watts: Phone # 770-468-7583 editor(@)pikecountytimes.com
 
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Farm Safety
By Guest Columnist Glen Rains, UGA Extension

ZEBULON - This is National Farm Safety Week 2020. This year’s farm safety theme is “Every Farmer Counts.” Focusing on individual farmers helps to drive home the message that farm safety is very personal. If someone is injured or killed on the farm, it can affect the family, neighbors and the whole community. However, harvest season brings a flurry of activity and excitement to see the bounty of hard work. At such a time, it is sometimes easy to forget that agriculture includes working with unpredictable large animals, large and powerful equipment and in extreme weather conditions. Added stress from potential crop destruction from weather events, uncertain financial markets, and unforeseen equipment breakdowns can lead to putting safety on the back burner. Many of these forces are out of our control, and can cause anxiety and a rush to get things done; temporarily forgetting about how dangerous and powerful farm machinery can be or how close lightning is striking. Fatigue and heat are also factors that can lead to missteps, trips or falls from high vantage points, or worse, into operating machinery.

Beyond these external factors, there are also inherent circumstances that can contribute to the risk of getting in an accident. Data shows there are two groups that make up the majority of injuries and fatalities on the farm. These groups are the inexperienced youth and complacent seniors. Inexperience with operating farm equipment or working with large animals can lead to taking risks or hitting the wrong controls during a snap judgement decision. On the other hand, experienced farmers can become complacent to the dangers around them and take unnecessary chances such as removing material stuck in a running machine or getting too close to a large animal. Older adults also have slower reflexes to react to sudden emergencies.

To overcome the fatigue, inexperience and/or complacency takes knowing how to do things safely and doing it continuously throughout the year. This can start with developing safe working habits on the farm. Studies show that it takes 10 times more repetitions to break a bad habit than to form a new one from scratch. Therefore, it pays to teach youth the right way to safely operate machinery and work around animals as soon as they can safely do these tasks. This is called forming “Good Habits.” Bad habits, such as working too close to running machinery, working on running machinery, not wearing a seat belt, wearing loosely fitted clothing, or generally taking chances (such as driving on a high slope) can lead to accidents, especially when fatigued or in a hurry. You should always work on the farm using safe practices, and you will if those practices have been cultivated into a habit. Once you always walk around the equipment and do not step over the PTO, you are much less likely to break that habit, even when in a hurry. For example, the habit or wearing a seat belt. If you do it continuously, you will eventually do it without thinking and you will have formed a good safety habit. Other examples would be to always turn off the tractor when leaving the seat, or never allow extra riders unless there is a seat for them to sit with proper seatbelt and rollover protection. Other good habits are to never step over a PTO, always check for pedestrians when starting up and operating machinery, and do a safety check of the machinery or tractor before operating. For additional safety related resources, go to The University of Georgia website www.extension.uga.edu/publications and search for “agricultural safety.”

Submitted 9.24.20
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