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Farm Safety Check: Tick-borne Disease

Tick-borne disease is a serious health-concern across the Upper Midwest, particularly for anyone working outdoors. Farmers might be more likely to walk through tall grass, thick brush, and wooded areas that ticks thrive in. Taking precautionary and preventive steps during tick season can help you avoid tick-borne diseases, but knowing signs and symptoms is important as well. …

Farm Safety Check: Safe Digging

Preparation is the first step on any project. Before starting a new digging project on the farm, call 811 before you dig. Hitting a buried utility is dangerous and expensive, and it’s the law to call 811 before you dig. Remember: small or big, call then dig. …

Farm Safety Check: Sharps Handling Safety

Farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and agricultural workers are susceptible to needlestick injuries on the job. Prevent these kinds of injuries through worker training and best practices with sharps storage, handling, and disposal. …

Farm Safety Check: Skid Steer Safety

Skid steers are a common and critical piece of equipment on the farm. With moving buckets, blind spots, and varying center of balance, these machines can be dangerous to operators and bystanders despite the productivity benefits. While they pose hazards like pinch points, runovers, and entrapment, safe operation is possible. …

Farm Safety Check: Manure Application

When applying manure, it is important to remember to work safely and avoid cutting corners. Besides general machinery safety, there are many additional hazards that manure may pose. As you work to apply manure before the ground freezes, keep this safety checklist in mind for agitation, pumping, transportation, and application. …

Farm Safety Check: Hearing Protection

Hearing loss is permanent and irreversible. October is National Protect Your Hearing Month, and it’s also a time of year farmers are working around combines, dryers, augers, and other equipment with high noise levels that harm hearing without proper protection. …

Farm Safety Check: Stress and Wellness

In farming, there’s a lot out of your control, creating stress that can potentially lead to serious impacts on your well-being. Check in on yourself, employees, or family this month to manage stress and remain resilient. …

Farm Safety Check: Silage Storage

Silage bunkers and silos have unique hazards, like silo gas, dusts that may contain mold, avalanches, falls, and more. Silage gas formation during the fermentation process has lethal potential, especially with silos. …

Farm Safety Check: Sun Safety

Those working in agriculture are at a higher risk for skin cancer because of time spent in the sun. It’s important to take multiple steps to protect yourself from overexposure and reduce sun-related risks. Sun protection includes covering your body with clothing, wearing a hat with a full-brim, adequate sunscreen coverage, and sunglasses. …

Farm Safety Check: Chemical PPE

Synthetic chemical use is often a part of farming and agriculture. Pesticides can be serious irritants to skin, eyes, and lungs, can affect your internal organs and your health in the short and long-term. Avoiding and/or reducing use of toxic chemicals reduces these risks. However, if you are handling chemicals, take time to implement best practices, like using PPE and following labels carefully. Whether you do your own application, use treated seed, or spot applications on the field, using the right PPE is an important step in your health and safety. …