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Farm Safety Check: Preventing Building Fires

Fires pose serious threats to the wellbeing of livestock and humans. Farms have many flammable materials, such as pesticides, cobwebs, dust, bedding, hay, straw, paint, fertilizer, and paper. In the winter, additional threats to safety include the physical distance from farms to the closest fire station, poor road conditions, windy conditions that can intensify the fire, heating equipment, rodent bedding, and damaged wires and cords. Given these farm hazards, prevention is key. Take a moment today to save a life tomorrow. …

Trade Talk Success at the National Association of Farm Broadcaster’s Annual Convention

Scott Heiberger and Melissa Ploeckelman are no strangers to the agricultural media. In November, they headed to Kansas City to take part in the National Association of Farm Broadcaster’s Annual Convention. One of the main events at the annual conference is Trade Talk. During Trade Talk, Heiberger and Ploeckelman had an exhibit table to discuss our …

RF-DASH is going National!

In the first national training pilot, Rural Firefighters Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health (RF-DASH) instructors conducted a 2-day workshop for first responders, farmers and agricultural safety and health professionals in Minnesota. Participants came from across the country, including Idaho, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Minnesota and more. The …

SPOTLIGHT: The Multiplier Effect – US Ag Centers at Minnesota Farmfest

JULY 2019 The term “multiplier effect” is a term you may be familiar with and one commonly used in the world of economics.  UMASH and our neighboring U.S. Agricultural Safety and Health Centers  also apply the multiplier effect in the world of safety and health as it relates to reaching farmers, farm families and workers. UMASH and our colleagues …

A Year in Review – Highlighting the Important Work of NFMC

The National Farm Medicine Center (NFMC), located in Marshfield, Wisconsin is one of the five UMASH collaborators.   We share in the mission to improve the health and well being of the agricultural workforce and their families in the Upper Midwest.  NFMC has recently published their Year In Review which highlights the good work being accomplished not only with UMASH but with many other partners, some of which include the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, the Migrants Clinician Network, AgrAbility - Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin - School of Medicine and Public Health. …

Kicking off the Farm Show Season: UMASH in the Neighborhood

UMASH staffers, Diane Kampa and Carol Peterson, kicked off the farm show season with Farm Technology Days. This show was held July 10-12, 2018 near Marshfield, WI and gave us the opportunity to work in tandem with our National Farm Medicine Center (NFMC) colleagues. …

Agritourism – It’s a new word to many people

UMASH connected with Township Officials across the state at the Minnesota Association of Townships annual meeting on November 16-17, 2017. Visitors to the UMASH booth were asked to complete a 2-question survey about the types of agritourism events occurring in their part of the state. Many people who answered the questions were surprised to learn about …

SPOTLIGHT: Firefighters Could be Key to Farm Safety

Rural firefighters are farmers’ neighbors, friends, family, or are farmers in their own right. They are a highly trainable and trusted workforce. Moreover, they are in every rural county in the U.S. and will always outnumber agricultural health and safety experts – unless they become experts themselves. …