Occupational Health

We're deep into the dog days of summer - lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer - and while many of us are hitting the beaches and lakes and soaking in the rays, we actually have more to fear from the sun than just high UV and skin cancer. Working in the sun - specifically, under-hydrated, overexposed, unprotected work - can result in illness, and even fatality, during the hottest months of the year.

For many of us city slickers, farms aren't much more than a pastoral landscape as we take our country drives on Sundays; maybe, at best, we think of the food that comes to our tables. But as dangerous places??

Farm accidents don't really count as workplace injuries, do they?...  You wouldn't think so, given that they are not covered by some workers compensation programs, and many national statistics-gathering bodies don't include agricultural accidents and illnesses in their OHS numbers.

But take a look at the average day on a working farm, and you'll see staggering risks, including: