Rural Issue

Safety first during harvest

Farmers’ busiest and most stressful time of the year is also when safety needs to be top of mind.  University of Wisconsin John Shutske teaches everything from ergonomics to injury prevention and occupational health on the farm.

He says farm gases are a big concern right now.  “This time of year, we’re really concerned about the health effects of working around silage and silo gas, and then here recently in the last month or so, we’ve been investigating a couple of different fatalities, two different deaths that have involved exposure to manure gases.”  He says one of the fatalities was from a manure wagon accident and the other from agitating stored manure with no wind to carry away the fumes.

Shutske says stress can lead to additional dangers.  “We’ve got a period of just a few weeks to get that crop out of the field and either sold or safely stored to use through the winter.  That puts a bit of time pressure on people.”

AUDIO: John Shutske