Preparing against the worst can set farms up for safety success.

What would your farm look like without you?

For Canadian Agricultural Safety Week, get your family members and employees involved in safety planning

If you were to go missing, get laid up with an injury or pass away unexpectedly, how would your family or employees handle your absence?

Certain simple non-strenuous activities such as tai chi are known to help improve balance and, according to Harvard Medical School, help people improve their proprioception — that is, their ability to sense the position and movement of the body in a given space — which in turn can help them resist and reduce falls.

Work on stability for your whole-body wellness

Fit to Farm: Practicing to improve your physical balance can be done simply at home

No matter your age or fitness level, your ability to stabilize yourself in various positions has been shown to have a major impact on your overall wellbeing and long-term health outcomes. Your body’s ability to stabilize also directly links to your capacity for joint mobility and tension levels in your tissues. Balance and stability are […] Read more


Using a life-sized mannequin and actual grain, CASA shows how a person amounts to just a few bushels relative to the weight of the grain flowing around them.

Successful grain rescue shows value of training, awareness

Program demonstrates ‘reality and severity’ of grain entrapment

Grain entrapments don’t often have happy endings. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for a grain entrapment on Feb. 9 in east-central Alberta. Chris Krushel, fire chief for the Edgerton Emergency Services Department, says a man had entered a grain bin to clean it when he became caught in the grain. Thankfully, another person was present […] Read more

Farm trucks may be required to report for safety inspections when encountering roadside commercial vehicle inspections by authorities.

How to ace a roadside heavy truck inspection

Daily pre-trip inspections, knowledge and a good attitude are key

Every farmer has dealt with the frustration of a machine breakdown during peak seasons that stops field work in its tracks. But how much more frustrating would it be to have the farm truck put out of service on the roadside for an unrepaired defect that won’t pass a random spot check by police? Every […] Read more


carpal tunnel exercises

How to treat carpal tunnel at home

Fit to Farm: Symptoms begin when connective tissue compresses tendons and nerves in an already-busy area

Carpal tunnel is a condition that can affect anyone, anytime, though it’s especially common in those who work with their hands and do manual labour. The carpal tunnel is an anatomical term for the path the tendons in the forearm and wrist take underneath a bridge of connective tissue in the wrist moving into the […] Read more

Children and youth need to be involved in conversations about farm safety —and that means being honest with them about the potential dangers on the farm.

“One decision changed my life”

A farm accident survivor on the need to keep farm kids safe

Bailey Kemery knows how quickly a farm accident can happen and change a life forever. It was April 1994, and Kemery, who was four years old, was playing on a parked tractor-driven rototiller that was still running on her family’s grain farm near Major, Sask. Her parents were standing not too far away. When the […] Read more


Farms offer children an increasingly unique living and learning experience but are still workplaces where appropriate supervision and boundaries are a must.

Data shows more needs to be done to keep kids safe on the farm

Kids FarmSafe Week, a new public awareness campaign, runs May 13-19

We can all agree that farm safety is more prominent now than a few decades ago. But while Canadian farms are becoming safer, hazards still exist, and it’s clear that there is still a long way to go with farm safety — particularly when it comes to children and youth. The latest Canadian Agricultural Injury […] Read more

AFAC spearheaded the deployment of emergency trailers across the province for use in emergencies such as barn fires or livestock transport rollovers.

Who will carry on AFAC’s work in Alberta?

The organization provided valuable services, including emergency livestock trailers

It is with sadness I heard about Alberta Farm Animal Care (AFAC) closing its doors in Alberta after 30 years, which I would say is after 30 years of extreme good. The great thing was that it was animal welfare-based through and through and had all the production animal groups on its board. They all […] Read more



farm workshop

Tips for setting up a farm workshop

Create a more efficient and safer workshop environment

Anyone who’s spent time working in a commercial mechanical shop will almost certainly have walked over to the first aid kit a few times to bandage a cut — or worse. And more than a few will have even made a trip to the emergency ward on occasion. A farm workshop is no exception. In […] Read more