What is Farm Safety and Why is it Important?
Before anything, it’s important to discuss what farm safety is. These are simply the measures and controls that you put in place to protect workers when they’re working on the field. This is done to reduce the dangers and risks to your property, employees, and other assets. That way, your business is protected from financial risks and dangerous accidents.
5 Farm Safety Tips for Field Workers
It’s critical to practice farm safety in the field. That said, it’s also important for each organization to tailor their safety program to their specific needs. To help you out, below are five different farm safety tips that are a huge help to organizations building a safety program:
1. Conduct Safety Training Regularly
The first step in a comprehensive safety program is teaching all your workers how to perform tasks and accomplish goals in the safest ways possible. To do this, the organization must conduct regular safety training courses that cover all the important aspects of safety training. That way, all workers are informed of safety protocols, best practices, and appropriate PPE that they must wear in the field.
2. Maintain Farm Equipment
Farm maintenance and safety go hand in hand. Maintaining equipment and ensuring that everything works properly and safely is vital in establishing a culture of safety on the farm. This is why organizations are encouraged to regularly inspect their farming and agricultural machinery.
Faulty and outdated equipment are major risks to worker safety. This is because these machines are more likely to fail when employees use them, which can result in costly and dangerous incidents in the field. This is especially true when dealing with heavier equipment such as tractors and plowing machines.
3. Handle Chemicals and Hazardous Products with Extra Care
It’s common for employees to handle various hazardous chemicals and products during farming activities. This is because part of the agricultural process involves giving certain chemicals to the plants and produce to shoo away bugs and other pests. While these pesticides and chemicals are effective at keeping pests at bay, they can be dangerous for humans.
This is why you must train all employees in properly handling chemical products. No employee should utilize these products without understanding the best practices to keep themselves safe. So, aside from training your employees, you must also make sure that only authorized and trained personnel handle chemicals and other hazardous products.
4. Perform Fire and Emergency Safety Briefings
You never know when an emergency may occur in your workplace. Emergencies can be unavoidable, regardless of the controls and safety procedures you have in place. However, what’s critical is that all your employees are trained in what to do in the event of emergencies such as fires, earthquakes, or other natural disasters.
To do this, you need to give them regular briefings on what to do in the event of an emergency. While these may sound like a drag for some employees, reminding them of emergency protocols on a regular basis will prove to be invaluable during an emergency as it ensures that all employees know exactly what to do during an emergency.
5. Invest in Alert Systems
Lastly, it’s best to install alert systems so that employees will be notified whenever there’s an emergency that they need to respond to. This could be in the form of massive alarms that can be heard throughout the farm or simple farm safety and maintenance platforms that can send notifications to your employee’s phones.
Understanding when there’s an emergency or incident is crucial for smooth and safe operations. So, make sure that your farm has an efficient and functional alert system in place so that your employees always stay on top of their personal safety.
