National Farm Safety and Health Week webinars teach ag health and safety tips

Sept. 17, 2024, 6 a.m. ·

National Farm Safety and Health Week
National Farm Safety and Health Week teaches health and safety tips to agriculture workers and healthcare providers. (Courtesy Photo by Linda Emanuel)

A nonprofit focused on promoting safety in agriculture is hosting free webinars this week covering equipment safety, health and wellness, and agricultural injuries as part of National Farm Safety and Health Week.

Laura Siegel is the Health Communications Officer at AgriSafe. She said the program was created because agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations.

“We’ve come up with a lot of new safety precautions and technology that can help with safety, but we’ve also come up with a lot of technology and equipment that can bring in new dangers that we might not have anticipated,” Siegel said.

AgriSafe is a national nonprofit. It partners with agricultural-related or adjacent organizations to keep the webinars free to attend virtually. Each webinar lasts about an hour with time to ask questions.

Siegel said they use educational outreach to increase positive health outcomes in rural areas. This includes targeting agriculture workers and healthcare providers.

“We really believe that if we get the information out there and people are aware of it, they can use that to make safer choices and to instill preventionary methods,” Siegel said.

In 2022, 465 people from 43 states and from other countries participated in the webinars. Siegel said that getting at least one person in every state can help spread the information.

Ellen Duysen is a research assistant professor at UNMC in the Department of Environmental, Agricultural and Occupational Health. She said they work together to get messages about farm safety and health to the public.

“These are the folks that are creating our food and fiber, and the importance of keeping them healthy,” Duysen said, “And the importance of us being aware when we’re on the roadway of this big equipment. I think this raises awareness, not only within our agricultural community, but also the public.”

Duysen said they target healthcare providers because knowledge of agricultural health and safety can lead to a better diagnosis.

“We know that part of the important equation here is if these workers do become ill or injured, that our healthcare providers, not just rural providers, but also our urban providers, understand what some of these hazards are when they have a farmer come in,” Duysen said.

The National Education Center for Agricultural Safety chooses the weekly theme and the daily themes. This year’s theme is “Don’t Learn Safety by Accident.”