When Seconds Count: Staying Safe In and Around Grain
Each year, millions of children visit farms across North America. These may include their family farm, a friend’s farm, a school field trip, or another educational experience. While these visits certainly foster a child’s understanding of the agriculture industry and farm practices and satisfy their curiosity for large equipment and livestock, keeping safety at the forefront is always vital. Since farms are busy, active workplaces, children should be taught from an early age that the farm is not a play area. Therefore, every moment on a working farm or ranch is a teaching moment – especially for children.
In 2022, at least 42 grain entrapments were reported, the highest number in a decade. Grain entrapments showed a 44.8% increase from 2021, resulting in 15 fatalities. In four seconds, an individual can sink knee-deep in flowing grain and be rendered unable to free themselves without assistance. In just 20 seconds, an adult may become fully engulfed. Suffocation from engulfment or oxygen-deficient atmospheres is the leading cause of death in grain accidents. Over 300 grain entrapments were recorded in the past decade; however, an additional 30% of cases are estimated to go unreported. To shed light on this important topic, Grain Bin Safety Week is commemorated each year during the third full week of February. This year, Grain Bin Safety Week will be celebrated February 18-24, 2024. Additionally, Stand Up 4 Grain Safety Week will occur on March 25-29, 2024.
In 2022, seven incidents involving agricultural confined spaces involved youth or children under the age of 21. Curiosity, size, strength, and lack of experience are often major causes of injuries and fatalities for young children. The Progressive Agriculture Safety Day® (PAF Safety Days) program whole-heartedly supports this endeavor and is taking it a step further to educate our future generation of farmers – our children. At PAF Safety Days, we stress to participants that grain is no place to play. Educating youth about the potential dangers, characteristics, and scenarios associated with grain bin management is essential to reducing incidents and losses. In 2023 alone, more than 27,000 youth participating in a PAF Safety Day in North America received hands-on education about grain safety.
Through activities and demonstrations, youth participants learned to:
Always stay out of flowing grain.
Never walk or play in or around stored grain.
Never enter a grain bin, wagon, or truck.
Stay away from the grain bin while the unloading auger or vacuum/suction tube is operating.
In the event of an emergency involving grain:
Turn off any equipment that is causing the grain to flow or move. This will stop the person from being pulled further underneath the grain.
Always assume the victim is alive and take the necessary measures to help the situation. This may include turning on aeration fans and assuring the dryer heat is turned off.
Call for help immediately. Never attempt to pull someone out of grain on your own.
You, too, can do your part to help keep kids safe from grain entrapments by sending the correct message when youth are visiting your farm. After attending a grain safety station at a PAF Safety Day held in Kentucky, a teacher mentioned to her students that when they visit agritourism sites, like pumpkin patches, playing in the simulated grain bins or boxes is really a bad idea and gives a false sense that playing in grain is safe. Therefore, we must ensure that we always send the correct messages about staying safe while on a working farm. When focusing on grain safety, it is unfortunately too common for agritourism sites and other events to replace sandboxes with corn for children to play in, which causes great confusion. As the teacher noted, a young child will have trouble understanding and identifying the difference between grain in a play “corn box” and grain in a gravity flow wagon.
The “Safety Day Corner” is a safety message by the Progressive Agriculture Foundation® (PAF), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, with the mission to provide education, training, and resources to make farm, ranch, and rural life safer and healthier for all children and their communities. Recognized as the largest rural safety and health education program for children in North America, the Foundation’s Progressive Agriculture Safety Day® program has reached millions of participants since its inception in 1995. For more information about PAF and its programs, visit www.progressiveag.org.