Extension Debuts Farm Safety Training Web Site

The possibility of a serious, even paralyzing or life-threatening injury is a real fact of life for Alabama’s farmers. Based on statistical analysis, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health reports that Alabama should expect about 12 farm fatalities and 9,000 serious farm injuries every year.

In addition to the personal pain and suffering that accompany these losses, it is estimated that out-of-pocket losses to agricultural producers amount to roughly 4.5 million dollars in Alabama every year. To pay these costs, farmers must sell approximately 45 million dollars in farm commodities annually.

Sponsored by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the Farm Safety Education Program is designed to reduce fatalities and injuries in Alabama through the following approaches:

• enhancing tractor safety through awareness
• providing farm safety training for youth, including promotion of local safety day camps
• providing training material for farm families
• providing training literature and programs that enable farmers to develop their own safety management plans

Most of this material can be obtained by logging onto the Web site: http://www.aces.edu/farmsafety.

Dr. Jesse LaPrade, Farm Safety Education Program coordinator, urges all farm owners and managers to use this material to develop a safety management plan and routinely provide training for all farm workers. The site also features supportive training literature that can be used to train farm workers on a variety of safety topics.

“I urge every farmer and farm worker in Alabama to visit the new site and see for themselves how easy and effective the materials are,” LaPrade says. “Also, be sure to include any farm-related injury on the form provided through the site.”

He also welcomes suggestions about how the site can be improved.

“The Alabama Farm Safety Education Program is one more way the Alabama Cooperative Extension System is working for you,” LaPrade says, “because all of us care about you.”

[Source: Dr. Jesse LaPrade, Alabama Cooperative Extension System Farm Safety Specialist, (334) 844-5533.]

Posted by Jim Langcuster at October 15, 2004 03:31 PM