Pork Producers Advised to Create, Implement and Adhere to a Farm Safety Plan

By Bruce Cochrane, Farmscape & Lynn Redl-Huntington

The Strategic Advisor Agriculture with Workplace Safety and Prevention Services says the key to maintaining a safe agricultural workplace is to have a plan and to make sure everyone believes in that plan and follows it.

Workplace Safety and Prevention Services is responsible for occupational health and safety awareness in agriculture, manufacturing and service industries in Ontario. Dean Anderson, the Strategic Advisor Agriculture with Workplace Safety and Prevention Services, told those on hand at the Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2022, the sectors that face the greatest risks tend to be those that have the largest equipment but don't have a formal health and safety program. He said that agriculture falls in that category because of its large equipment and two seasons, planting and harvest, that tend to get very rushed.

”In agriculture as a whole, 50 percent of our fatalities are tractor related, rollovers and runovers then entanglements within the equipment we've got. When it comes to injuries it tends to be injuries that involve working around animals and entanglements. In the pork sector, our biggest overall concerns for injuries tend to be things related to the biologicals,” explained Dean Anderson of Workplace Safety and Prevention Services.

Anderson has worked in agriculture occupational health and safety for over 20 years. He serves as the Chair for the FarmSafe Foundation and sits on the Canadian Agricultural Systems Standards Oversight Committee.

The Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium is recognized as one of Canada’s leading pork industry conferences. It attracted nearly 300 producers, industry stakeholders and government representatives from across Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Expert local, national, and international speakers shared the latest information and trends on hog production, animal health and welfare, new technology, and the global outlook for the North American hog industry.

For more, please visit farmscape.ca.