05/21/07 Making Farming Safe

Making Farming Safe. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Back quite a few years when I was getting my first summer farming job I was required to take a training seminar on how to drive a tractor and staying away from the power take-off shaft or PTO. As a teenager, I didn't take it very seriously. I guess I knew too much for my own good. Years later, one of my very dearest friends who was a long time farm broadcaster in Kansas retired to his farm and within 6 months was killed when his tractor slipped into gear and ran over him. Many of us personally know someone who was injured or killed in a farming accident. One company has taken on the mission of making sure our youth know of the dangers. Susan Reynolds is the Executive Director for Programs with Progressive Agriculture. REYNOLDS: The Progressive Agriculture Foundation exists to fund the Progressive Agriculture Safety Day Program and with that program we train local volunteers in how to pull their local community together to run a special event for children, a safety day basically in which they teach the children all there is to know about safety, mainly agricultural. Safety Days are run in numerous locations throughout the U.S. and anyone can submit an application. According to Reynolds there are a lot of items the kids can learn about. REYNOLDS: We have probably 23  24 topics that are available in our manual and they're things like  I'm just going to pick a few here  we've got PTO safety, large equipment safety, animal safety, both small and large animals, we have water safety, fire, first aid; we're adding a new curriculum on methamphetamine awareness because so many of our rural coordinators have asked for that. Kids of all ages attend safety days. REYNOLDS: With our group we are teaching children mainly 8 to 13. We do have younger ones and we do have older children and sometimes adults but the main group we are trying to reach is 8-13 so we have to really careful to tailor whatever message we are giving to that group of children so we are not telling them how to drive a tractor but how to stay safe around a tractor. You can check the progressiveag.org web site for a safety day happening near you or to request more information. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.