Current Grain Storage and Safety Practices of Ohio Cash Grain Operators

Abstract

Hazards associated with grain storage facilities are a contributing factor to agricultural injuries and are a perpetual problem for Ohio farmers, especially as on-farm grain storage facilities continue to grow in popularity with producers. To establish effective injury prevention programs, safety professionals must first understand how the industry operates, the culture of the workers, and the current practices used to avoid injuries. This research project was designed to bridge the gap between what is currently known about the hazards that exist on Ohio's farms, specifically how safety and health information is incorporated at the grain handling and storage facilities. Using a four-part survey, 182 cash grain operators, comprising a convenience sample of farmers attending educational events, were surveyed to determine the type of grain storage and handling facilities used on their farms, the occurrence of out-of-condition grain, and the health and safety factors practiced at these facilities, including their knowledge about potential hazards. Results indicated that the farmers preferred to get safety knowledge from a course or seminar (53.6%) or by reading a magazine or periodical (38.8%). The surveyed farmers indicated that they had higher knowledge of the safety risks of out-of-condition grain than of the health effects from exposure to out-of-condition grain (p < 0.01). They identified personal protective equipment (PPE) as their primary measure to prevent injuries, with the top PPE items being respirators, safety glasses, hearing protection, and gloves. Farmers who encountered out-of-condition grain reported more employees on their farms compared to the other farmers in the sample and reported higher use of PPE. While these results cannot be generalized to Ohio's entire population of cash grain farmers, they provide a good understanding of the on-farm grain storage and management practices, which will allow a more targeted intervention plan, both in better engineering controls and in future outreach programs.

Occupational hazard management in grain storage units

“…Most accidents in grain storage units may be associated with the complexity of the structures present in the processes and their operations, which offer hazards of serious and fatal injuries (Geng & Dee, 2018;Dias et al, 2019;Bellochio & Coradi, 2022).…”

“…There are few studies related to occupational hazards developed in post-harvest activities in pre-processing and grain storage units. Thus, such studies are recent in identifying the causes of occupational incidents in this line of work (Geng & Dee, 2018;Kakhki et al, 2019;Chen et al, 2020;Bellochio & Coradi, 2022).…”

Use of Neural Networks to Identify Safety Prevention Priorities in Agro-Manufacturing Operations within Commercial Grain Elevators

“…Conducting in-depth research on identifying risk factors and causes of occupational incidents in various industries will ultimately help to reduce the rate of incidents and injuries [10] through establishing effective injury prevention programs [11]. Agricultural-related industries are high-hazard workplaces, where workers are exposed to serious safety risks and the cost of occupational incidents is enormous [12].…”

“…The expansion of grain storage capacity in recent years has led to a higher number of occupational incidents in grain handling industrial operations [14]. The frequency and costs of occupational incidents in grain elevators are higher than in other agribusinesses [11,[15][16][17]. Few studies have addressed safety issues in the grain handling industry.…”

“…Mosher, Keren, Freeman, and Hurburgh [18] evaluated the role of human factors in the management of occupational safety in commercial grain handling facilities. Geng and Jepsen [11] conducted a survey on grain handling operations to evaluate how safety and health information was incorporated at the grain handling and storage facilities in Ohio, US. Ramaswamy and Mosher [14] used chi-square contingency tables to characterize the injury costs in commercial grain elevators, and showed that employee age and tenure, cause of injury, and body part injured have a significant influence on the cost of occupational incidents in such an industry.…”