Farm safety goes beyond preventing tractor rollovers.
Hundreds of growers, managers, human resource employees and workers gathered Feb. 5 in Yakima, Washington, for the 21st annual Agriculture Safety Day held at the Yakima Convention Center. The event offered opportunities to learn about everything from sexually transmitted disease to stress mitigation to oral health.
The Washington State Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Advisory Board puts on Agriculture Safety Day events in Yakima and across Washington every year to cover all things safety and wellness. Information is presented in English and Spanish.
In one of the sessions, a contingency of outreach specialists, or promotoras, from the Community Health Centers in Moses Lake and Quincy discussed the use of condoms, how to store food safely in refrigerators and how to brush teeth. Some H-2A workers from small, rural villages in Mexico don’t always know those things, so promotoras cover them during onboarding sessions, said Dalia Ramirez Cruz. They use a stuffed cow to demonstrate toothbrushing and flossing.
Other sessions covered mitigating stress and anxiety in their fellow workers and themselves, preventing workplace violence and ergonomics.
Traditional workplace safety issues, such as respirator use, sprayer calibration and forklift safety, had their own sessions.
And of course, tractor safety made the cut.
Fifty percent of all farm accidents involve tractors, said Karina Cardenas of Hopsteiner. She colored her presentation with videos of crash-test dummy rollovers and took attendees outside in the snow to physically point out the rollover prevention bars, seat belts and other safety features on a tractor displayed by a local equipment supplier.
The advisory board will hold another Agriculture Safety Day on Feb. 26 at the Wenatchee Convention Center. To register, or for more information, visit:Â https://web.cvent.com/event/d1c9ede7-8a4e-403b-83f9-cd29db7dd238/summary.
—by Ross Courtney
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