As spring approaches and once the fields are ready, farmers and manure handlers may be pumping nutrient-dense manure to apply to crop fields. Marguerite Tan, director of environmental programs with the National Pork Board, says safety is where you must start, at the basics of reenergizing your body during a busy season.
?Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, and make sure that you have the appropriate nutrition,? Tan said. ?Don’t let yourself get hungry because if you are operating when you’re tired, that is when fatigue sets in, and that’s when we make mistakes and when accidents happen.?
Tan said one major challenge of agriculture and farm safety is that producers work in weather windows, and that includes spring manure pumping.
?We need to make sure that we have at least two people doing the pumping itself,? Tan said. ?We need to develop a pumping plan, so we know what’s going to happen. We also need an emergency plan prior to starting the pumping, so if anything goes wrong, we know what we’re going to do.?
During manure pumping, a gas monitor is one of the most important pieces of equipment one can have, as it takes two hours for those manure gases to evaporate from the building.
?But many of us in our haste to complete the task, we don’t go into the shop and dig out the gas monitor,? Tan said. ?Take the five minutes, find the gas monitor, and use it. It does us no good if it’s sitting on the shelf.?
Prior to pumping, Tan reminds producers to extinguish the ignitions sources, evacuate the buildings, and post signs to keep people out of the building during the procedure. For more information, visit porkcheckoff.org.
