Home safe, every day: Why safety should be at the center of everything we do in Ag

This week is National Farm Safety and Health Week. This observance was created by the National Safety Council to raise awareness about the dangers of agriculture and safety measures that can help prevent serious injuries and fatalities on the farm. One of the stats the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS) cites is, “The 2022 data for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the agricultural sector is still the most dangerous in America with 417 fatalities.”?

The data cited by the council is only from 2022 – we have a long way to go to make agriculture a safer place for everyone to work and to, as we say at Nutrien Ag Solutions , go home safe, every day. One of the aspects about our culture at Nutrien Ag Solutions that I take a lot of pride in is our commitment to safety and caring for our teammates.??

However, we can’t do it alone – it takes the dedication of our employees to take the extra steps needed to make sure that they go about their daily tasks safely. It also takes collaborating with external organizations to expand our Culture of Care and commitment to safety to our customers by connecting them to learning opportunities and resources regarding health and safety. For this National Farm Safety and Health Week, I wanted to take the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the collaboration, safety champions, and initiatives that we are part of as a company that align with this week’s daily themes.??

Equipment and Rural Roadway Safety??

Driving can be one of the most dangerous things that each of us does every day. Out on the roads, we are not only at the mercy of our own decisions, but the decisions of the drivers sharing the roads with us. For tractors and other farm equipment, it can be even more dangerous. ?

These vehicles commonly need to use roadways to access their land, sharing the road with people in their community commuting to work, the grocery store, or transporting their children to school or other activities. Some drivers get frustrated at farm equipment for slowing down their drive, some may even get impatient and create unsafe situations by passing the equipment when visibility into oncoming traffic is low.?

Other times, farm equipment is transporting chemicals or products that can pose a hazard if spilled. If those vehicles get into an accident, there becomes an additional health risk to everyone at the scene. ?

One of the ways that we are promoting road safety and protecting our drivers is by implementing Samsara ’s Video-Based Safety and Vehicle Telematics technology into our fleet of vehicles at Nutrien Ag Solutions. The dual-facing cameras help to watch the road for hazards and discourage dangerous driving habits such as harsh braking, sudden turns, or being distracted behind the wheel. The technology also monitors our vehicles to efficiently use fuel, as well as to ensure that all the vehicles are properly maintained and running the way they should. You can read more about how we use this technology from our announcement in 2023.?

Health and Wellness??

Maintaining your personal safety may not always be safety from external dangers, it can also mean keeping yourself healthy by taking care of your mental, emotional, and physical health. Did you know that farming is associated with higher levels of stress and anxiety? There are many responsibilities that farmers bear. As many of us know, when the world seems to be on our shoulders, it can get overwhelming and we can get lost in anxious or hopeless feelings, unfortunately, many farmers don’t have accessible health or mental health care.?

Part of caring for one another is to be there when our teammates and neighbors need us the most. That’s why we’ve teamed up with the AgriSafe Network in the US and The Do More Ag Foundation in Canada to make health and mental health services more accessible to growers. Both organizations also offer training so that we can upskill our teams to identify when their customers may need some extra support and care.?

Generations of Farming?

While succession planning and training the next generation of farming professionals may not be the first thing to come to mind when thinking about farm health and safety, it’s such a critical element to the future of our industry. Preparing the ag leaders of tomorrow makes our industry healthy and sustainable, just as farmers preparing their successors makes their operation healthy and sustainable for another generation.?

To lay the foundation for successful succession planning, our Nutrien Financial team has local experts stationed at Nutrien Ag Solutions locations throughout our North American footprint ready to guide and match growers with the financing options that best benefit their operations today and for years to come.?

Personally, I am extremely passionate about the next generation of talent to join the ag workforce. There are many different options for careers and leadership development in agriculture. I’ve seen reports that many of today’s young professionals are looking for purpose-driven careers. Maybe I’m biased, but a career in agriculture is one of the most purpose-driven options you can find. Whether you’re in the field directly working with a grower or working in a field-supporting role, such as IT, accounting, marketing, or research science, you help enable our customers to focus on what matters most – growing a healthy crop to sustain their operation and feed our growing world.?

Confined Spaces?

It’s all too common for those of us working in agriculture to know someone impacted by a serious injury or fatality from a confined space. Members of our Nutrien Ag Solutions team, like Will Hudson, Manager of our Ethridge, Tennessee facility, and John Scott Suber, Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE) Advisor for Retail, have turned their personal losses into fuel to spread awareness about grain bin safety. They have created training efforts and fundraisers in their respective communities to share safety tips with first responders and farmers working with grain bins, as well as to make grain bin rescue equipment accessible.??

Reporting Ag Injuries??

This last theme of National Farm Safety and Health Week ties directly back to our Culture of Care and Nutrien Way that our company lives by each day. Most specifically, we empower every employee at Nutrien Ag Solutions to use their “Stop Work Authority.”??

Stop Work Authority is the ability to pause work, no matter the task, when the situation is unsafe or could become unsafe. Once an employee invokes their Stop Work Authority, all work pauses, and the situation is assessed for potential hazards and only resumed when all the safety concerns in the situation are addressed. We use stop work authority and our five key daily safety actions to prevent injuries from happening, and we also have trained SHE personnel for each of our divisions that provide training and guidance in the case of an injury.?

To wrap this up…?

Safety shouldn’t be a topic we avoid in agriculture; it should be one we embrace. We need to destigmatize safety conversations and make our industry a place where people feel that they can speak up about hazards in their work environment. There’s so much to be proud of in a career in agriculture and so many opportunities for the next generation to take our industry to new heights.?

Let’s strive to make our industry safer than we found it so that we all can go home safe, every day.??