Name: _________________________
AGEN 105
Lab # 1: Agricultural Safety
A good resource for this lab and agricultural safety in general can be found by following this
link: http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/menu/topic/machinery_general.html. The website is called the
National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) which is part of the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH.)
Part I: Do this part in groups.
In small groups come up with a list of machinery that you have an understanding of and/or
have experience with. This list should include at least one piece of machinery from the
following areas of agriculture:
Tillage
Planting
Forage harvesting
Grain harvesting
For each piece of machinery, answer the following questions:
1. What are the specific human factors that could affect the use of this piece of
machinery? Explain.
2. What are the specific machine factors that could affect the use of this piece of
machinery? Explain.
3. What are the specific environmental factors that could affect the use of this piece
of machinery? Explain.
4. What Caution/Warning/Danger decals should be placed on this piece of
machinery?
5. Where are the machine hazards on this piece of machinery? (pinch points, wrap
points, shear points….)
Part II: Do this part individually.
Over the following week, find an example of a piece of machinery from each of the
categories listed above in Part 1 of the lab (eg. on the neighbors farm that you worked at
there is an old New Idea corn picker which is a grain harvesting implement.) Write a few
paragraphs for each piece of machinery describing the safety issues with the implement. If
you don’t have access to farm machinery or you aren’t going home over the course of the
week, then there are several dealerships in the area:
White’s Farm Supply, Sangerfield: Case IH, New Holland, Kuhn
Empire Tractor, Cazenovia: Case IH
Clinton Tractor, Clinton: New Holland, Kuhn
Cazenovia Equipment, Cazenovia: John Deere
For the purpose of this lab, used machinery is more appropriate because it won’t have all of
the latest safety devices. Try and find examples of machinery that are missing shields and
have the greatest number of safety issues.
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