However, a recent story from Iowa's Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier noted that farmers should not forgo safety while they hurry to get farm equipment out. The paper states that the harvest is more than two weeks behind, and $2 billion worth of corn is still in the ground.
"Producers are working long hours and at a fast pace to get corn in the bin," the Courier's report stated. "Safety specialists say the combination is often the contributing factor to farm accidents, and workers need to be extra careful so they don't end up a statistic."
Doug Hickman, acting president of the Iowa Farm Safety Council, told the paper that getting crops out of the ground is not worth losing life or limb. With that in mind, he gave a number of safety tips farmers should keep in mind as they navigate their harvesting equipment through fields.
Producers should make sure farm equipment is off before they try to work on it. Furthermore, farmers need to make sure to get plenty of sleep, and should make sure to take a 15-minute break every few hours.
Iowa is not the only state that is experiencing delays in the harvest. From the east to the south, wet weather has pushed the harvest back across the country, making farmers work later hours in darker conditions, which adds its own safety difficulties.
