Yellowhead County Farm Safety Day
With the success of the Farm Safety Day held in 2016, it was decided to make the Farm Safety Day an Annual event for local rural Yellowhead County junior high students.
Learning to Reduce Farming’s Risks.
With the success of the Farm Safety Day held in 2016, it was decided to make the Farm Safety Day an Annual event for local rural Yellowhead County junior high students.
The local farm safety event was hosted by Yellowhead County for junior high students on May 30, 2017 in Wildwood, and provided a hands-on approach to identifying hazards and promoting agricultural safety.
“Some teenagers, who have grown up working on a family farm or nearby local farm, may be very aware of dangers that they can encounter every day,” says Yellowhead County Agricultural Services Coordinator, Patricia O’Neil. “But, there may be many more dangers out there that they’re not aware of, or that they’ve developed a blind spot to after years of a potential risk because it’s never been an issue in the past. We gear our Farm Safety Day towards reminding them of those dangers that could injure them, or worse.”
In Canada, Agriculture ranks as the third most hazardous industry. According to the Farm Safety Centre, a non-profit organization, which promotes safe agricultural practices through the development and delivery of educational materials throughout rural Alberta, there were 331 farm-related fatalities from 19972014. 19% of those were children under 18 years old. With those statistics in mind, the Yellowhead County’s Agricultural Department wanted to offer a Farm Safety Day, which taught students how to be safer on their farms through customized education and awareness.
Working on a family farm or any industrial-agricultural operation has always had its inherent risks associated with it – from working long hours to using heavy equipment and managing unpredictable livestock. This new event was created to alleviate some of the dangers inherent in these situations.
There were 85 students in attendance from Wildwood, Niton and Evansburg schools who took part in the full day event that showcased many of the potentially dangerous situations that anyone working or living on a farm may come across. Education is important for anyone who has grown up on a farm and may be dismissive or too comfortable with many of the day-to-day dangers of farming operations. It’s also important for someone who visits a farm and may not be aware of the potentially dangerous situations that are visible to people who are around them on a daily basis.
The students were broken up into small groups and rotated through the different farm safety stations which focussed on various scenarios that may bring a level of danger when in a rural situation. The stations covered topics such as wearing proper clothing and having an awareness when using or being around pesticides; proper livestock handling and management techniques; laws and safety around distracted driving while operating vehicles and safety around bodies of water of any size.
This event was at no cost to students. Yellowhead County would like to thank our major sponsors:
UFA, Agriculture for Life and Mayerthorpe Martin Deerline for their contributions to this event.
As well as to our other sponsors who volunteered to present and provided the students with taking home resources: Dow Agro Sciences, Fortis Alberta, Rednex Ranch, The Red Cross, and Yellowhead County Fire Services and Bylaw.