Fatigue, rushing still take a toll on farms
It’s tough finding farmers with time to talk about safety this week.
They seem to be in their fields, working hard to get off the crop before a heavy frost or more rain.
That’s the point of this story.
“When people are lacking in sleep and under more stress because they’re trying to get things done — hurriedness and tiredness — that’s when you’re going to have an injury,” says Bonita Mechor, a researcher on the topic.
Mechor’s a knowledge translation specialist at Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture, based at the University of Saskatchewan. “We found that’s one of the biggest things that’s influencing the injury rate is the state of the person: How tired you are and whether or not you’re experiencing stress and have been sleeping.”
Recent statistics are hard to find because farmers don’t fall under Workers Compensation Board coverage. Long-term statistics prepared by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association under its Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting (CAIR) project, sketch a mixed picture:
■ The bad news: between 1990 and 2008, there were 1,875 fatal injuries on Canadian farms — an average of 104 per year. The only good news is that the number of these injuries is declining, from an average of 125 in the first five years of that period to an average of 87 in the last five.
Even that might be deceptive as Mechor pointed out the number of Canadian farms and farmers has fallen, too, over time.
■ More sobering statistics: CAIR’s statistics indicated the age groups sustaining the highest number of deaths were farmers between 50 and 59 years of age and from 60 to 69, reflecting the many farmers in those age ranges. On a per-capita basis, though, the most dangerous age group was 80 and over.
■ The most common causes of farm deaths compiled under CAIR are (in descending order) tractor rollovers (which was the listed cause of a death in Saskatchewan this week) and runovers, becoming entangled in a machine, collisions between farm machinery and other vehicles and being pinned or struck by a machine.
■ Next come animal-related deaths, being struck by other objects or machines, falls, falling objects plus caustic or toxic chemicals and asphyxiation by grain or soil.
■ Electrocution, subject of a long-running SaskPower safety campaign, is near the bottom of the list of causes of fatal injuries, followed by being caught on a machine or object, off-road vehicles and extreme temperatures.
Mechor says there are also some long-term trends that bear watching. Research has shown that older farmers have health comparable to other Canadians their age, save for lung function and hearing. That’s the consequence of long-term exposure to grain dust, chemicals and noise.
Based on the centre’s research, Mechor has some advice:
■ Get some sleep. Even a short nap can help.
■ Beyond sleep, take short breaks, especially when using machinery for long periods in order to keep alert.
“Get out of your combine, walk around and stretch.”