5. Commercial agriculture, in general, is considered to be at what level of danger when assessing workplace safety?
From Quiz Down On The Farm
Answer:
Extremely dangerous
Growing vegetables involves heavy machinery, such as ditch diggers, bedders, planters, tractors, chemical sprayers, and for major crops such as wheat, harvesters. Workers must be trained in the proper use of machinery and the proper attire for each job. Our farm used hand labor, so no harvesting machinery was necessary. The tool of choice was the Ontario 'Cabbage Knife'.
Other dangers include the remoteness of some fields, presence of harsh chemicals, storage of gasoline and diesel fuel for trucks and machinery, language barriers (My employer was from China and 99% of the workers were from Mexico; the remaining 1% were gringos, Vietnamese and Haitians), communication with the home office or packing house and lack of training. Of the 200 or so workers on the farm, only 16 had walkie-talkies, and as supervisors they were responsible for keeping an eye on those that had no communication device.