The Director of the Manitoba Farm Safety Program says the wide variety of tasks to be done on the farm, makes farming one of the more risky occupations.
The Manitoba Farm Safety Program provides safety services free of charge, including training, on farm safety inspections and farm safety program development to Manitoba farmers to help them manage safety on their farms.
Keith Castonguay, the Director of the Manitoba Farm Safety Program, says the Manitoba Farm Safety Program is an industry based safety program for farmers by farmers that considers the unique safety challenges of the industry.
There’s been a lack of awareness in a lot of farming groups that legislation that’s for every other business in Canada actually applies to them too. If you have hired staff then there’s responsibilities that, as a business owner, you have to maintain them. There’s responsibilities that a farmer has to have and they go for training, orientation. Hazard awareness is a very big part.
In the hog industry H2S is a concern, making sure that employees understand the risk that’s involved with it. If you do any kind of chemical application in any of the farming, what are the risks? Are you creating awareness, are you putting programs in place to prevent injuries? One of the biggest ones on farms is dealing with equipment. There’s lots of equipment, lots of moving parts.
The uniqueness about farming is that, in most industries if you hire on, you’re probably doing one or two jobs in a day, a week, or a career. In farming you’re doing lots of them. There’s lots of big moving equipment, there’s lots of animals, there’s lots of things to be aware of so the risks are very high in farming and being aware of them is big a part of any good safety program.
~ Keith Castonguay, Manitoba Farm Safety Program
Castonguay says farmers know the risks involved in farming so the Manitoba Farm Safety Program takes direction from farmers to create the tools that will help make sure everyone goes home safely every day.
For more on the Manitoba farm Safety Program visit manitobafarmsafety.ca.
