Farming is apparently one of the most dangerous professions.
What are the sources of danger?
https://www.ufkeslaw.com/blog/2019/august/the-7-most-common-farming-accidents/
- Overturning tractors and heavy machinery.
- Falls.
- Toxic chemical exposure to pesticides.
- Suffocation.
- Heat Stress.
- Limbs crushed in agricultural machinery.
- Animal-related injuries
https://nasdonline.org/1241/d001045/a-review-of-farm-accident-data-sources-and.html
Most traumatic injuries occur during interactions with machinery, especially tractors (Bean, 1991). Injuries also result from poor building design, electric power, livestock handling, and weather conditions. The activities that victims were most often performing when injured are machinery maintenance, fieldwork, and caring for animals
Tractor Rollover Protection
So I’ve seen one issue is tractors rolling over, and they have rollover protection designs that can be retrofitted on old tractors. Maybe some farmers, having thin profit margins, have skimped on buying the new safety designs, so they continue to operate tractors that can rollover and be a danger. But that seems like one solution to fixing the problem of most deaths.
Animals Versus Tractors
So interacting with animals is high on the list of what causes harm, as well as tractors. Presumably in order to prevent some animal harms (like with horses), tractors were thought to be able to be used. I guess what I’m getting at here is, would it be safer to use horses instead of tractors, or tractors (with rollover protection) instead of horses?
Cutting Technology Out
Roughly half of the issues in the first list are technology related: tractors and heavy machinery, toxic pesticide exposure. Again, would it be possible to trade off some productivity and to make farming more labor intensive, to gain some safety?
High Technology Solutions Instead
On the other side of the spectrum, I guess “autonomous tractors” or remote controlled ones come to mind, that couldn’t flip over, and maybe robots could be used to interact with animals to prevent dangerous animal interactions. I suppose in starting to write this I assumed the low tech direction would be more viable, but does farming need a “high tech revolution” instead to become safer? More programming of farming-related robotics, and less dangerous manual interactions?
Conclusion
I’m curious if anyone has thoughts on how to improve the safety of farming today, with possibly making trade-offs of less or more technology for less yields, or if a lot of the dangers might be mitigated in other ways.