NGFA launches second Harvest Safety Week

(Posted on 28/08/20)

The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) in the USA is launching its second-annual Harvest Safety Week on Aug. 31-Sept. 4. During this virtual event, NGFA provides safety resources particularly useful during the fall harvest to NGFA members’ inboxes each day.

NGFA, established in 1896, consists of more than 1,000 grain, feed, processing, exporting and other grain-related companies that operate more than 7,000 facilities and handle more than 70 percent of all U.S. grains and oilseeds.

“Harvest is a hectic time for our industry, with lines building up at truck dump pits, new seasonal workers added to handle the inbound crop, long hours spent serving farmer-customers and getting that crop stored, marketed and shipped, and this year, it’s compounded by the impacts of a devastating Midwest derecho and a pandemic,” said NGFA President and CEO Randy Gordon. “We are encouraging our members to use this week as an opportunity to reinforce and exemplify their commitment to their employees’ safety by using NGFA’s safety materials and sharing them as far and wide as possible.”

Participants can share safety materials, safety stories and best practices by using #Harvest20 and #HarvestSafetyWeek with @ngfa on social media.

This year, NGFA is introducing two new safety products – a video on combustible dust and a Safety Tip Sheet for protecting against entanglements inside grain bins. The tip sheet adds to NGFA’s robust suite of safety materials for protecting employees from grain bin accidents.

In addition, NGFA members are encouraged to share these materials with their farmer-customers. Historically, 70 percent of grain bin entrapments occur on the farm. NGFA has many videos, Safety Tips Sheets, webinars and other materials applicable to both commercial and farm facilities – all found at ngfa.org/safety.

“This industry fulfills a noble and indispensable role in transforming the bounty of America’s producers into safe, nutritious and affordable human and animal food,” Gordon said. But we can’t do that without providing a safe workplace to employees working in this great industry.”

Safety always has been an essential value of the NGFA, a commitment that it magnifies through its cooperative Alliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in which they collaborate to broadly communicate safety information commitment to protect employees.

The NGFA’s extensive efforts to enhance safety include unprecedented research and education efforts launched in the late 1970s that helped lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of fire and explosion incidents in commercial grain-handling facilities. NGFA and its charitable foundation, the National Grain and Feed Foundation, have continued this safety focus by increasing a robust suite of safety resource materials and partnering with state and regional affiliates, member companies and OSHA to spread awareness of safety best practices and the availability of training resources. And this year, NGFA is partnering with its member companies to get safety messages communicated directly to farmers.