Your Team and Harvest

Profile Picture of Post's Author Helen Korzec | Posted September 26, 2022

Harvest season, a time where everyone is working long hours, fueled likely by Red Bull and determination. We are inundated with kernel processing, moisture, dry matter, packing, and the constant “do we have enough help” question. As you could imagine, our minds are other places during harvest, and we are likely determined to just get the job done well and have adequate quality feed for our cattle for the upcoming year.

As we know with many jobs on the farm, it takes a quality team. Teams willing to work the long hours and to get dirty, sweaty and miserable at some points. Most farms and nutritionists will host a pre-harvest meeting to go over the focus areas to ensure the quality of the crop…key phrases come up like processing, packing and dry matter. During these harvest meetings, it is easy to overlook safety of employees; yet harvest season can be the highest risk for injuries to employees.

Encouraging safety to be part of your pre-harvest meeting could save lives, money, time and endless deals with insurance. There are many local resources to use to go over pre-silage safety concerns, yet it is encouraged to work alongside your nutritionist, managers and harvest staff to customize a safety plan for your farm. This team will be familiar with the particular safety concerns that may be applicable to your farm. But for good measure, there are a few “trigger” areas to look out for.

  • Safety vests: everyone should be visible. With equipment running everywhere and time is of the essence, we want to ensure that everyone is visible.
  • Proper equipment and momentum: ensure that tractors are well balanced for packing silage and movement- dual wheels can increase stability, and front wheel or 4 wheel assist tractors can also ensure stability on piles.
  • Equipment safety: ensure that each person knows how to run the specific machine they are tasked with running- such as how to shut it off, how to properly back up and pre safety checks prior to running your equipment. Surprisingly, most injury claims are from exiting equipment without maintaining 3 points of contact upon exiting. We must require employees to remain in equipment and not exit without communication.
  • Slope safety and rollovers: it is important for employees to know where they can run equipment, what slopes are safe and proper backing technique on slopes.
  • Avoid visitors: harvest season is exciting, but lets avoid tours, or any people who have not attended the pre-harvest meeting.
  • Communicate: this is key- some farms use radios, text groups, or WhatsApp. This is a good way to communicate issues with equipment, visitors who are not permitted or exiting of equipment.

Although discussing safety may be at the bottom of your harvest to-do list, it could save you time, heartache and money. Use your consultant and local extension resources to ensure the safety and wellbeing of your team this season. Here’s to a safe and productive harvest season!

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