The Moos Room™

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Emily: Welcome everybody to The Moos Room. It is currently the gruesome twosome, but I believe Bradley will be here eventually. Hopefully, he will drop in, so we don't have to be a true-crime podcast once again. In the meantime, me and Dr. Joe are here, gruesome twosome. All right. I'm, of course, really excited about this week's episode, because it is a really big week for me personally and professionally. It's National Farm Safety and Health Week. I'm sure you're used to it by now. This is our third National Farm Safety and Health Week that we are celebrating together as The Moos Room, which is exciting, and also scary that we've been doing this this long.
If you're not familiar, National Farm Safety and Health Week is a week that is held typically around this time in September, just before harvest. It's really meant to nationally shine a spotlight on farm safety and health, in light of harvest, and of course, everything else that goes on. Now you know me, I'm a big proponent of farm safety, is year round. It's not just a planting and harvest issue, but I think it's really important because we know harvesting is one of the most dangerous times of the year on the farm. This is a really well-placed time to be talking about these things. We're here once again talking about farm safety. It's another episode of The Emily Show. Joe, are you excited?
Joe: I'm super excited. Super excited. I know, I think that this is one of those topics that for a lot of people is tough to get excited about, but I think when you start looking at all the things that encompasses when we talk farm safety, there's a bunch of things that come to mind right away. Then when we have incorporated health into this week, I think that's a huge development and there's a lot more to talk about. Of course, this is farm safety and health, so it doesn't have to be just about cows. There's all sorts of things involved in this, whether it's roadway safety, confined spaces, mental health itself. Of course, PTOs, four-wheelers, kids on the farm. There's so much things to talk about. It really is important, especially if you have kids and employees around.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. That's a great lead in for what we're going to talk about a little bit today. I do believe we've brushed on this topic in previous episodes, but we've never had a full episode where we dived into it. I feel like I'm going to say what we're talking about, and you might think, "Huh?" Hopefully, it starts to click. We're going to talk about creating a culture of safety on the farm, and just what a culture of safety means. Now, if we put it up at a broader sense, the word culture really refers to a group of people and the standard norms, and values, and beliefs that they hold.
Cultures go across all different sorts of groups of people and subgroups of people and all of that. In this case, we're talking about the culture of your farm. More specifically, is it a culture that encourages safety? To frame this up a little more, thinking about the culture of places, and you maybe hear it, workplace culture, that kind of thing. Again, what is important to the farm? What are the values and the shared beliefs that everyone can kind of agree to? What are the communal goals that everyone is working towards? You may say, "Oh, my farm doesn't have a culture."
It does. It has a culture. Now may be a good time to take a step back and really think about what that culture is and how you might want that culture to change or remain, and how you can work with the other people on your farm to do that.
Joe: One of the things that I think is really important to point out is that, especially if there's someone listening who isn't a farmer, when we talk about farm safety, I think everyone jumps right to fatal accidents, which happen, and they happen way too often. We're always trying to reduce that, but we're also talking about non-fatal injuries here. Things that are very, very serious, but things that are just-- That nagging injury that sticks around and doesn't cause you to lose time in your week or in your workday very much, but makes your work so much worse because you're dealing with it.
From some of the stuff that Emily has shared with me and reading that, the fact that those non-fatal injuries occurred at such a huge proportion of the farming community every year is crazy. We're talking a third of the farmers out there suffer some kind of injury every year. That's a huge number.
Emily: I'm glad you brought that up, Joe. That is a lot. I think when you think more critically about farming, it's easy to see how a number that high is possible, but of course, for somebody like me, I don't want to see a number that high. A third? That's a lot. 33% is a lot of anything, and especially, a lot of accidents. Yes, we talk about lost time accidents and no-lost time. I'm sure everybody listening right now is thinking of their own no-lost time injuries that they've had. I have been there. I have closed my foot in a gate, and I've made all sorts of mistakes and sustained a few injuries along the way.
It's really important that, especially those no-lost time accidents, we need to be learning from them. If this accident happened to you, was it something that can be changed? Something that can be engineered as a structure? What's the likelihood somebody else might get hurt on that same thing, too? Yes, it's not a big injury. Maybe nobody has to go to the hospital, or there's not a big gash in your arm with blood coming out of it, but it's still important that we use these experiences to inform what we're going to do moving forward.
That is part of the culture piece, too, of this continuous feedback loop of everybody on the farm playing this role and saying, "Hey, I had a little slip up here. This happened. I think this was the cause. Can we try to fix that?" Again, if it's a faulty gate or something else like that, that can be fixed, or if it's a hazardous area that needs to be blocked off or marked more properly. Anything like that. Again, those are little things that you do. Things that happen in the background is what I think about a lot with culture too, especially in terms of safety.
The best time to enact safety on your farm is before you have an accident. Not after, because I want to save you from having the accident part. We're familiar with my story, and I always say, I don't want anybody to ever get the phone call that I got, saying my brother lost his arm. Part of the way that we can prevent those phone calls from happening is by doing these things around our farm. I'm really curious, Joe and, Bradley, if he ever shows up, I plan to ask him this as well.
You, like me, have been on many, many farms. I am just curious if you have some examples you want to share of things you have seen or behaviors you've noticed in farmers that have made you go, "Yes, I think safety is really important to this farm, and they show it in this way." Hopefully, we hear about just-- Again, like I said, the little things. The background things that are happening. We'll go through some of the best and some of the worst here, but let's start with the best. Let's start on a high note.
Joe: Yes, I think my favorite, there are several farms that come to mind right away. A lot of times, I would have meetings with them that were scheduled, but they would be more of an informal conversation just to check in, so I would show up. Most of the time, if there wasn't anything real serious to talk about, we would do those meetings either walking or doing something else at the same time. A couple of the farms that I have those meetings on we're talking and having our "meeting" while that farmer is fixing something. Most of these things that we're fixing it's feedback from employees.
Employees have said, "Hey, this isn't right. It's making my job more difficult or unsafe," and that farmer is listening. I think it's one of the biggest ways that you can make employees feel heard, is to say, when they bring something to you and you create that culture where they feel comfortable bringing you something and then you get on it right away, you promptly solve the issue or talk about or figure out a way to get a solution worked out to make that situation safer.
I think that's the biggest thing that I've seen and the most successful farms that I've seen have that culture right away where if someone points something out, and then it's not something that just lags behind and sits there and continues to be an issue and everyone's just aware of it. It gets fixed, and there's a real solution found in a quick and a prompt timeframe.
Emily: Yes, that's a really good one, and that is so important, Joe. Yes, creating this environment where everyone feels like they can voice their concerns, and there is somebody who wants to address that concern. I think it's also such a great opportunity for the farmer or whoever's in charge to say, "Hey, thanks for pointing that out to me. I'll take a look at it. Do you have any solutions you've thought of or do you have any ideas of how we can fix this?" Just to really, again, make it feel like it's a true team effort and not just, oh, this is a problem, someone will fix it. We're all in this together. We're going to make this work together and find what's going to be the safest.
One of my favorite examples of a culture of farm safety, and I know that I have said it on this podcast before because we did a silage harvesting safety episode a while ago. I'll say it that way. I know I told this story there too, but I love to tell it again. A dairy farm I know that I've worked with for many, many years and when they are packing their silage bunkers, every single person in the vicinity of the farm is wearing a safety vest and a pair of safety glasses. That is something they are very, very strict about. Basically, as soon as you get out of your car, you're in your safety gear. I just remember talking to the farmer a little bit more about that and she just said, well this is something we're in a time crunch and there's a ton of moving pieces.
She's like, "Not everybody can do their jobs singly at one time. They have to be happening simultaneously." She's like, "And so this way we just know that people can see each other, and, of course, the eye protection is really nice because we know silage when it flies, it will always fly directly into your eyes." That is what I have learned in my 30-plus years on this earth.
If you are around silage and it's blowing, it will find its way into your eye. Glasses are great for that too. Can prevent infection, scratching all of that. I just found that to be such a simple way, just some PPE and as PPE and safety things go, goggles and vests really, really affordable and you can buy them in bulk and have it so everybody on your farm has their own vest. They can put their name on it, they have a little ownership over it. Things like that that just help with the buy-in and especially when it is something that everyone is doing.
Before we started recording today, Joe and I were talking a lot about setting an example and that is for managers, farm owners, that is for parents, that is for everyone. I think that the safety vest thing too is a really great example of how you lead by example because the farmers, they were the first ones to have theirs on when they started doing that and said, "Hey guys, this is what we're going to start doing now." Then they are marshaling to make sure people have them on.
Now it's not an issue at all and everyone just knows, yes, when we're doing bunker packing, we're in our vest and we're in our glasses and that's how we're doing it because the yard is busy and we don't want anyone getting hit and they've never had an accident. We can't say for sure that it's strictly because of that, but it's very, very much a factor in why they've been able to not have any accidents. That's an example for me that I really like quite a bit.
Joe: That's the big thing is the setting example thing. There's been several times where I am either on farm or I'm with some of my former employees and I watch them do something and you sit there and you're like, "Wow, that was really unsafe. I wonder why they chose to do it that way." Then you think you're like, "Oh yes, they were with me last week and I did that same thing."
They're really just doing exactly what I did. That really hits you, when you start to see that repeated over and over again, you're like, "You really got to be careful what you do and how you set that example because it is going to set the tone." I'm totally guilty of it, of setting the wrong example and then seeing it carried out by employees and people working with me. Yes, I think that's the one to really watch. The other one that I think that happens a lot and that I see on farms a lot is people just shrugging off close calls and I think that happens all the time and you just--
Emily: Yes.
Joe: You just shrug it off and you don't debrief it, you just, ha, ha laugh. That was, I almost died. That was funny and then you just move on. That happens all the time when you're working with bulls or cows and really what should happen is everyone should stop once they're safe and in a good spot. Briefly, it doesn't have to be for a half-hour meeting, it can be 30 seconds to a minute and say, "Hey, how did you get in that bad spot? Why was it a close call? What could we have done different? Is there something that needs to change before we move on?"
That can save a lot of strife because it's a close call and next time it might not be a close call, it might actually happen. Farmers, because they're in a rush and veterinarians, everyone who's working in agriculture because they're in a rush, they tend to shrug those close calls off instead of debriefing them.
Emily: Yes, I think that's a great point, Joe, and I do have one question I want to add to your list of questions and I'm going to jump this one up and say it should be the first question you ask, which is, are you okay? A connection here that I was just seeing as Joe was talking was to that mental health piece. I have had close calls and, I won't get into details, but basically, I was a child and I am lucky I did not break my neck. When people have those close calls, that can also be very scary and can absolutely raise their stress hormones and put them on edge, maybe make them feel paranoid. It's really important too that you are doing that debrief so that you can hopefully calm some of their nerves and worry about what happened. We've all been there where we're scared straight.
I think that it's such a great opportunity to also help create a strong morale on your farm as well that like, hey, we take accidents seriously, but we take them seriously because we care about you not because we're worried about workman's comp or lost time or whatever it might be. The main concern is for the people, I always say that, people are the number one asset on the farm. It's not your land, it's not your equipment, it's not your building, it's not your cows, it's you and it's your people.
Joe: [unintelligible 00:16:47] can be a good thing too to debrief and point out, okay, we work in a dangerous field and sometimes close calls are going to happen and the reason that they're a close call and you're not hurt is because you did something right. You can really walk through that too and say, okay, what allowed you to get out of that unsafe situation quickly? Was it because you had some forethought to do a couple of different things and set things up and make a plan ahead of time?
If yes, then everything's going well, but it's a good reminder for everybody else, hey, I got out of this situation and that bull didn't kill me because I chose to unlock this gate ahead of time so I had an escape route. Great. Okay. The situation itself may have been unavoidable but it was a close call and you're not dead because you had some forethought and so that's a good reminder for everybody as well.
Emily: Yes, and I think that gets at another point I wanted to make, Joe, which is having a culture of safety is not just about calling out bad actors or calling out when things are wrong, it's also about highlighting when things are going well. Yes, if there is an near miss but there was something that someone did that was really smart that saved them from an accident, highlight that, tell them good job, reinforce that they did the right thing and we can maybe learn a few more things on how to be a little better next time.
That's really important too. It might sound a little silly but people want to be praised, people want to know that they're doing a good job, that they've done something correctly and that also can go a long way in boosting morale as well. Again, reinforces that this is important to you. It's not just important when it's a problem. It's important when it's good too when it's working, when you can highlight how good it is.
Joe: I think one of the other good things I see on farms all the time is that people pointing out and recognizing that good behavior or looking at two different choices. The one that comes to mind for whatever reason that's coming to mind right now is a bud box. If you're working a bud box on a beef farm, sometimes it can be a little tight to work inside the bud box but it's faster because you don't have to work, go out another gate and work outside the bud box but I've been in several situations where someone voices that.
An owner of the farm says, hey, just work outside the bud box. If it takes you an extra 30 seconds or a minute to get each group in, that doesn't bother me. I'd rather you worked outside the bud box. Someone being vocal in a position of authority saying, "Hey, I'd rather you did it this way and I recognize it's going to take more time", but voicing the fact that you're prioritizing safety over time is a huge piece, especially in agriculture because we're all in a rush, like you said, silage everything else, you're always on a time crunch.
Being able to say, "Hey, I value your safety over the time it's going to take, is definitely something that I think should happen more often and you can point out the good stuff too." Like you said, if someone's already working the outside of the bud box, say thanks for working outside the bud box, I really appreciate that you're being safe about it, whatever it is. I think that someone towards the top needs to be able to vocalize that so that everyone hears that you're prioritizing safety first.
Emily: In that same vein, I would say, you don't have to be a person in authority either to voice your concern. That goes back to what we were saying earlier about feedback. Everybody should feel like they can step up and say, "Hey, I don't think this is safe," or, you can say, "Hey, I don't feel comfortable doing this," or, "Can I get a little more training on this? I just want to feel competent in what I'm doing." That type of thing is really important, I think, in these types of situations. Yes, I agree that it's really important that people in authority are leading by example the most and raising concerns a lot and really showing their employees that it's important to them.
If you're an employee or a family member that works on your farm, if something doesn't make you feel safe, speak up because if you don't, it won't change. I think that that can be a little hard, and I know we worry about the time. We worry about people being upset, whatever it may be, but everybody needs to take the initiative to be a champion for safety, especially on the farm. I don't know any farmer or anyone that would actually be mad at somebody for raising a concern.
Might they be irritated if it's going to be a project that costs money and takes time? Possibly, but I think in the end, when you really strip it down to its core, the important thing is that you are voicing your opinion, and people are hearing that and able to take your feedback and turn it into action. Bradley has finally decided to drop in and join us. How nice of him. Hooray. This is not a true-crime podcast yet. We seem to be getting closer and closer every time, but we're okay today.
Bradley: Sorry. Sometimes, farmers come and want to learn about calves and all kinds of fun stuff. It just goes a lot longer, and everybody knows I'm willing to share all my stuff. It's good, but yes, then I missed the podcast and miss you two.
Emily: Well, thanks, Bradley. I can tell you were having a good time because you just have this glow about you. You're very smiley right now.
Bradley: It makes my day when I can help farmers and lots of farmers are interested in what we're doing out here. It makes the day go a lot better when that happens.
Emily: All right. With that said, I am going to put you on the spot. You dropped in in the middle of the conversation, it's time to contribute. We are talking about creating a culture of safety on your farm. Joe and I were sharing some of the good and not so good things that we have seen on farms that maybe indicate if there's a strong culture of safety or not. Now, I'm really putting you on the spot here, Bradley, since you just said you had someone out at the dairy, and I know you do get a lot of visitors. What are some of the things that you try to do when you do have visitors to keep the visitors safe, to keep the employees and the cattle and everyone safe?
What are some of your safety culture things that you have there at Moos?
Bradley: I think we work very close with our employees to let them know if there's going to be people on site that day, so we know that if somebody's feeding cows, or they're combining or running some grain boxes, you name it, so they know that, "Oh, there's a tour group. I should drive slower. I should be more cognizant of what's going on and pay attention." We're usually pretty good about communicating those ideas. We also, from a cow standpoint, just let people see stuff, but we don't like to get too close to cows.
I had some farmers out today, we were out in the pasture with the cows, but we didn't necessarily get right in and amongst the cows, but we were close enough where they could see what they're doing. We're always cognizant about safety of people around cows, even though we've never really had an issue, but I don't want to have an issue. That would be really bad. We're just more cognizant about what's going on and who's here and just being better about driving vehicles. We're probably even more on top of safety and we try really hard at that because sometimes we have a lot of elementary school kids here and other school kids that we just don't want anything to happen.
We try to be on top of our safety all the time, even though there's nobody even around, where, like I said, we have a lot of ATVs and we always wear our seatbelts on. I know that's one thing that a lot of farms might not do, that we're always wanting people to put seatbelts on if they're in the ATV. That's number one safety. We like to be in a safe environment and not have any issues.
Emily: It's so important, especially if you do have a farm that does agritourism or has a lot of visitors. Just being mindful that you're also creating a safe space for them, because especially when you are bringing people who maybe don't have farm experience onto a farm, it's also new and exciting for them, and I think we know too. Sometimes that excitedness covers up all of the danger. You can look at it through rose-colored glasses, and it seems really great. Yes, it's so important, especially if you are having school groups and other people out on the farm, that you're being really mindful of what practices are in place to make sure that just everything nearby is okay.
I think you brought up a great point, Bradley, of letting everybody know when people are on the farm so that they're a little more cautious, they're a little slower on the tractors, and safety is usually something that takes a little extra time. The time you spend driving a little slower versus the time you spend filling out paperwork if you run into a tour group, I know which one I would pick.
Bradley: Exactly.
Emily: Joe, do you have something you want to grill Bradley with?
Joe: The one thing we haven't really covered yet that I think does-- maybe it's not peace of mind, but it does show that you are promoting a culture of safety, is having a plan for when things do go wrong because they are going to go wrong. You can try to prevent everything as much as possible, so I would guess Bradley has some plans. I know that weather has been crazy. When high winds come through and trees are down and calf hutches are everywhere, there's probably a plan in place so that everyone's on the same page, and there's not so much running around like a chicken with your head cut off when there's just something there, so everyone can see it. Is that the case, Brad?
Bradley: Yes. Usually, there is a plan. It's always difficult-- we have our good intentions when something happens, and then a lot of us are pretty good at changing on the spot, but we're all hands on deck and we all work well with each other to make sure that things run smoothly, especially, I think back to the storm event this past spring. It was all hands-on, and it was like, "Well, what do we need to do to get done?" You go and everybody's just pulling their weight and doing everything to help out. Even though we have a plan, we know how to implement it, but the good thing is that everybody's going to chip in and help out to ensure that things go right.
Emily: Yes. That's a good point there, Bradley. Your plan should be adaptable, because when you are dealing with things like weather, not predictable. When you are dealing potentially in an emergency situation with animals, they're really unpredictable. Yes, I think being able to be a bit adaptable with your plan is really important, but it's great that you have a plan. People know if this happens, this is where you should go. This is what you should be doing. These are our priority things. I always tell people to think about two situations. One, where you need to hunker down and bear the elements. Snow storm, windstorms, tornadoes, and evacuation.
Evacuation, that'd be fire, possibly, flood. It depends where you're located. What is the plan if you need to get out? Who's in charge of getting what out? Who is going where? What's happening? If you need to stay put, who's checking your fuel and your power? If there's a generator that needs to be getting up and running, whose job is that? It's important to have just some of those little things in place. Yes, like you said, Brad, people show up, it's all hands on deck, everybody's pitching in. It's helpful when you have that scaffolding to build off of that helps keep everybody on track and everyone moving forward as well.
Joe: Bradley has another element that maybe some people deal with, and maybe they don't. Deal with maybe is a harsh term, but he's got students around all the time, both undergrad, graduate students. I guess my biggest question is how often are you having to just say, "Hey, slow down. Slow down."
Bradley: Yes, that's a good point, Joe. It happens. I don't like to be mean. Sometimes, I perceive myself as being mean to them, because I have to tell them to slow down on their Ranger. You don't need to go 30 miles an hour on it. You can slow it down and don't push the gas all the way down. We all have to be cognizant of safety, but sometimes, yes, they need to be retrained or just reminded that we have to be safe and we don't want any accidents with them, and we want them to keep working here. Yes, I shouldn't say it's often, but sometimes, we have to remind people about safety, and I'm sure every farm does.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. For me, the important thing is that you're doing it, that you are giving those reminders. I think that's an important piece too in a culture of safety is, you don't just let everybody run amok, right?
Bradley: Exactly.
Emily: Part of that is, when you're onboarding or have new students coming in, setting up right away like, "Hey, safety is important to us here, and it's more important to us that you do something safely than you do it fast." Just saying things like that can really help employees especially when they're new start right out of the gate knowing what's expected of them and also knowing that they can make safety a priority and that that is the priority and just build all that other healthy stuff, good feedback and all of those things. I think we hit the nail on the head here.
Joe: I think we're out of thoughts.
Emily: I think we're out of thoughts. Bradley, thank you for your late but impactful contributions. All right. I think with that, we are going to wrap it there. If you have questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals about today's episode of The Moos Room, you can email us, themooseroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. You can also call and leave us a voicemail for a chance for your question to be featured on a future episode of The Moos Room.
To leave us a voicemail, simply call 612-624-3610. You can also find us on Twitter @umnmoosroom and @umnfarmsafety. Lastly, I just want to wish you all a very happy National Farm Safety and Health Week. Hopefully, you celebrate it every week of the year, but I really encourage you all to take the opportunity to have some conversations about safety this week. I just want to remind you all, as always, to slow down, think twice, and be safe. Bye.
Bradley: Bye.
Joe: Bye.
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