National Farm Safety and Health Week

National Farm Safety and Health Week is this week. This year's theme is Working Together for Safety in Agriculture". Although many of the Pacific Northwest's wheat farmers are done or finishing up, they will be begin fall planting soon.

Kinze Manufacturing Senior Product Manager Rhett Schildroth shares some safety tips.

Schildroth: "One of the important things to do is generally cleaning -- clean up the weeds, debris and other obstructions -- particularly at field entrences and waterways. These are spots that could cause potential injury or impede your ability to work without difficulty. Good control of late seasons weeds is important. It can help reduce plugging in the harvest machines. So you need to identifiy areas that have weed problems and develop an effective weed management for those areas."

Schildroth says there are many steps farmers should take to ensure they have a safe harvest and planting this fall.

Schildroth: "Make sure that your equipment is properly maintained. Check and repair any potential hazards. You need to look for things like loose steps, ladders, platforms, handrails. You need to be sure that the slow moving vehicle sign is on all of your off-road vehicles. Make sure that sign is in good condition and properly maintained. Make sure that you have proper vehicle lighting -- especially at dusk and at dawn and in adverse weather conditions. Also use flashers anytime you are on public roads."

For added safety - he suggests farmers make sure they have a first aid kit at each of their sites and vehicles.