News Update
Sept. 17, 2009

Farm Safety Week: Take Precautions on Rural Roads

Harvest season is here, and busier rural roads and grim outcomes are likely if precautions are not taken.

Due to concerns about collisions and near collisions between farm equipment and motor vehicles, the 2009 National Farm Safety and Health Week, Sept. 20-26, launches a year-long focus on the theme “Rural Roadway Safety: Alert, Aware and Alive.”

“Harvest is one of the busiest times of year for traffic on rural roads, and consequently we see the number of crashes between motor vehicles and farm equipment peak during this time,” said Murray Madsen, associate director for the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health.

According to the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, based in the University of Iowa College of Public Health, there are on average more than 1,100 crashes between farm equipment and motor vehicles annually in the center’s nine-state region of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In 2008, Iowa accounted for more than 200 of the 1,085 crashes documented by the region’s traffic safety officials. Illinois had the most (249) followed by Iowa, Missouri (186) and Wisconsin (159).

Of the 1,100-plus crashes that occur annually in the Great Plains Center’s region, more than 30% involve nonfatal injuries, and about 2% result in fatalities, according to 2005-2008 regional data compiled by the Great Plains Center.

“Rural roadway safety is a concern for farmers and their families and should be a concern for anyone else who could potentially share the road with farm equipment. In fact, motor vehicle operators and passengers are the parties most often injured or killed in these collisions,” said Madsen, who also is the chief trauma investigator for the Iowa Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation project.

Madsen urged caution, courtesy and patience from all parties. He stressed that farm equipment should be equipped with all the required and recommended lighting and markings in place and in working order. Road lights should be in use day and night. Additionally, motorists should be alert for farm equipment, he said. Farm equipment often stops and makes wide, unexpected turns and may be traveling at a fraction of the speed of a motor vehicle.

“Farmers and motorists together can contribute to a safer harvest season on the nearly 900,000 miles of rural roads that crisscross our center’s nine-state region,” Madsen said.

American Farmland Trust Applauds the Opening of the White House Farmer’s Market

“We applaud the opening of the new White House farmer’s market and for the First Lady’s support of increasing opportunities for local farmers and community access to fresh, healthy, local food,” says Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT). The White House Farmer’s Market will open today just outside the White House grounds on nearby Vermont Ave., NW, in Washington, D.C.

“Farmland is the base requirement for a local food system. So is supporting the farmers on that land who grow our food. Farmer’s markets are a great way to bring local farms and communities together, and to help consumers understand that there’s no local food without local farmland,” Scholl added. “Our mission is to save America’s farm and ranch land, promote healthy farming practices, and support farms and farmers.”

“After 30 years as the leader on farmland protection and conservation issues, we couldn’t be happier to find support from the White House on an issue in greater need of national attention. By opening this market, the White House has set the table, if you will, for an important discussion. Protecting farmland for future agricultural use is of the utmost importance to every citizen in this country. And it is vital to maintaining the future viability of our farmers and rural communities,” Scholl added.

Julia Freedgood, managing director of AFT’s Growing Local initiative to promote strong local and regional food systems agrees. “In 1989, there were 1,890 farmer’s markets across the country. Today there are about 4,900 markets, over a 250% increase in 20 years.”

Freedgood attributes the amazing rise of farmer’s markets to a number of factors. “Among them the public’s concern about how and where our food is raised. Today more than ever, consumers are demanding ‘food with a face’ that comes from a place — food choices that celebrate family farmers and special agricultural landscapes like the Chesapeake Bay watershed.”

To encourage the support of farmer’s markets and the economic and social role they play in the community and draw attention to the fact that farmer’s markets and local food ingredients cannot exist without the requisite farmland, AFT just held its first national online contest for people to vote for America’s Favorite Farmer’s Markets. More than 30,000 unique votes were cast with markets in Collingswood, N.J., Williamsburg, Va., and Davis, Calif., earning the titles in their market size categories.

“Farmer’s markets provide public health benefits and economic development opportunities,” Freedgood says. The most recent USDA Census of Agriculture reported that nearly $1.2 billion stayed in local communities from direct to consumer sales — up 49% since 2002. “There is no question that farmer’s markets and farmland are a positive part of communities.”

“We’re excited to see the White House draw attention to agriculture in this way,” Scholl adds. “Whether providing healthy food, renewable energy or environmental services, agriculture is at the heart of solutions to our nation’s most pressing issues.”

— Release provided by American Farmland Trust.

Age and Source Verification Supplies Added Value to Livestock

As the information age hits the cattle industry in full force, Global Animal Management Inc. (GAM®), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health, is providing auction markets with the means to conveniently add value to their clients’ livestock through Auction Check™, an online age, source and process verification program for the auction market.

Auction Check can be utilized to meet compliance requirements associated with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) via a voluntary interface with the GAM Animal Tracking Database (ATD). In addition to the benefits of age and source verification, the system also allows subscribers to become valuable marketing partners by helping buyers meet recordkeeping requirements for mandatory COOL Compliance. The online process allows facilitators to easily keep track and update cattle records, which are stored in a secure electronic data warehouse. Cattle records can be updated as needed, and when calves are ready for market, are easily transmitted to the next owner.

— Release provided by Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health.

— Compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.