Kids out of school for the summer means refreshing farm safety

Farm Safety for Kids

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Kids are out of school for the summer and while this might mean they take on more

responsibilities around the farm, it's also a great time for parents to remind them of farm safety.I spoke with Pawnee Larson, program manager for the Kansas Agricultural Health and Safety program about why youth need these reminders. Youth on the farm are not just many adults.

"They may understand a lot of the concepts but they don't actually have that cognitive ability

to maybe understand the why, the how, and the risk that some of these typical farm tasks take.

So kids are also very curious and so that's the other part is they want to learn and that may

put them in harm's way, getting too close to equipment," Larson said.

While many youth on farms have been taught different farm safety practices, it's important to make sure they are reminded of them.

"This is a good time of year to remind everyone because there's more kids running around,

there's more traffic in the yard, and so it's always a good idea to make sure that, you know,

the rules are repeated again and again," Larson said.

Larson reminds farmers that it's not just people that live on the farm that need reminders but visitors as well.

"There's actually research that shows that visitors to farms, especially youth, actually are injured more than our youth that are working on the farm. So I think that's really important to remember is when you have visitors coming out, you know, let's make sure that all the dates are closed. They have really close super vision from adults. Any water or lagoons or that type of thing that are on the property are fenced off or at least the kids are kept away from them," Larson said.