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Farm Bureaus across the United States are highlighting safety with its Agricultural Safety Awareness Week March 6-10. The event is in partnership with the U.S. Agricultural Safety and Health Centers.

Mark McBride, Coffee County Farm Bureau agency manager, said that while Safety Awareness Week is not the first safety-oriented Farm Bureau initiative, the topics being highlighted this year go beyond some of the typical farm safety topics.

“There have been certain hot buttons that people think of,” McBride said. “I think in the past when you think about farm safety you think about things like tractor safety.”

Agricultural Safety Awareness Program Week, or ASAP, will feature a different safety focus that will be highlighted by state and county Farm Bureaus as well as U.S. Ag Centers during each day of the week.

Topics for ASAP 2023 include:

-Monday, March – 6 Mental health

-Tuesday, March 7 – Preventative Health Care

-Wednesday, March 8 – Safety Culture

-Thursday, March 9 – Situational Awareness

-Friday, March 10 – Temperature Related Safety

McBride said efforts are being made to broaden what is traditionally thought of as agricultural or farm safety.

“There is there is a lot of nuances to being safe around agriculture,” he said. “Agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations out there.”

For example, Monday, March 6 emphasizes mental health, something McBride said is not always the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to agricultural safety.

“There are a lot stresses that go into it, as well as being an occupation that if you are not paying attention you will get hit by an animal or you will step incorrectly going up a tractor or combine and miss your step,” he said. “It is easy to get hurt, there is no doubt about that.”

Another topic for Agricultural Safety Awareness Program Week is preventative care, something that McBride said can be easily overlooked due to the heavy workload on those in the agriculture industry.

“In all the years I have done this, there has been very little about that type of safety,” he said. “We have done more of making sure you have safety features in place and making sure you understand what not to do in a grain bin, but we have not really gone into the next level of sometimes it wiser just to take care of yourself.”

McBride said farmers can tend to take care of others around them before they stop to take care of themselves, but it is important they take care of their own health as well.

“Awareness is a good word, I think that may be a critical word,” McBride said. “I think the focus would be farmers and those in the agriculture industry in general need to continue to focus and be aware of all of the hazards in the occupation they have chosen, but also be aware of the fact that they, like every other human, need to proactively take care of their own health.”