Reading Time: 3 minutes Every day hundreds of thousands of animals are transported across Canadian highways without mishap, but every so often, there is an unfortunate accident with animal deaths and injuries. Alberta has developed an emergency network because of the huge numbers of cattle transported to feedlots and packing plants. While this network is invaluable, there’s also an […] Read more
Be ready to help if livestock involved in accidents
First responders can benefit from local livestock knowledge when disaster strikes
Young children, seniors figure highly in ag deaths
Sobering data offered by farm safety advocates at annual meeting of Canadian Agricultural Safety Association
Reading Time: 4 minutes There’s good and bad news on Canada’s farm injury front. Deaths on farms or related to farming practices dropped an average of 1.4 per cent annually from 2011 to 2020. However, there were 624 agriculture-related deaths in that period. Of those deaths, 26 were children ages one to four and 124 were people ages 70 […] Read more
GRIM READING: Farms remain very dangerous workplaces
The ag industry ‘hasn’t adopted a culture of safety,’ says author of report on farm fatalities
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting recently released its latest report with data on agriculture-related fatalities between 1990 and 2020, with particular focus on 2011 to 2020. CAIR is a national surveillance program funded by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association and co-ordinated by the Injury Prevention Centre at the University of Alberta. According to the latest CAIR […] Read more
The dangers of fatigue in the busy seasons on the farm
The consequences of a southern Alberta farm employee falling asleep last fall could have been much worse
Reading Time: 4 minutes Damaged equipment is bad enough for any farmer in the middle of harvest, but a co-owner of a southern Alberta farm says they could have lost much more. KCL Cattle Company lost thousands of dollars last fall when an employee crashed into a header after a long day in the field. The header was totalled, […] Read more
Preventable farm accidents continue to take a grim toll in Alberta
Farm workplaces are dangerous places — thousands suffer injuries every year and some lose their lives
Reading Time: 3 minutes Editor’s note: This story contains graphic content. Farmers and their family members keep getting hurt or killed for the same reasons, so a 14-year veteran of rural medicine is sharing accident stories as a warning during harvest. Dr. Andrew Swinton was one of the foot soldiers on the front line who dealt with serious injuries […] Read more
Opinion: Pandemic stress and exhaustion are taking a toll on our farms
Everyone is feeling worn down but on farms, that ups the risk of an accident occurring
Reading Time: 3 minutes January is a weird month. It’s an optimistic time, with a new year bringing resolutions and a sincere hope for life to be better and brighter. But it’s also a dark and slow month on the Canadian Prairies — especially in the rural areas, on the often quieter farms so many of us call home. […] Read more
Two new programs aimed at Class 1 licensing problems
Farm groups welcome reduced training option and grants for those wanting to be truck drivers
Reading Time: 2 minutes The provincial government has opened a pair of avenues that will make getting a Class 1 driver’s licence easier for some. New training rules — called Mandatory Entry Level Training (MELT) — were brought in following the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, which killed 16 people in April 2018. The accident prompted reviews of driver training […] Read more
Class 1 licensing problems need to be addressed, say farm leaders
Costly new training requirements and testing backlog among the issues facing many farmers
Reading Time: 2 minutes More than a dozen farm groups in Alberta are calling on the province to further delay the implementation of new Class 1 licensing rules, and find ways to make it less costly for those farmers and their workers seeking one. Those new training rules — called Mandatory Entry Level Training (MELT) — were brought in […] Read more
Alberta rail crossings see many tragedies
Reading Time: < 1 minute The RCMP reminds Albertans to exercise caution near rail crossings. In 2019, Alberta had the second-highest number of total railway crossing incidents, accounting for 20 per cent of all incidents across the country. Of the 35 crossing incidents last year, 11 resulted in serious injury or death. The province also reported the second-highest number of […] Read more
Ford recalls 1.48 million pickups over transmissions
Washington | Reuters — Ford Motor Co. said on Wednesday it was recalling about 1.48 million F-150 pickup trucks in North America due to a potential transmission downshift issue that could increase the risk of a crash. Ford said select 2011-2013 model year trucks with six-speed automatic transmission could experience an unintended downshift into first […] Read more
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