Cover Story Sidebar 4: Coming soon: an industrial safety standard for farming

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

This month, the Canadian Standards will unveil the first draft of a comprehensive industrial occupational health and safety management system for agriculture

by MARY BAXTER

For products such as baby seats and bicycle helmets, it's fairly common knowledge that a Canadian Standards Association (CSA) designation means that they were built with safety in mind. What may be less apparent is the CSA's involvement in the agriculture sector. Since 1990, it has published 45 standards that tackle the safe design and use of farm machinery.

This month (April), the association will unveil Canada's first stab at outlining an occupational health and safety management system for agriculture.

"It'll be a derivative of our industrial occupational health and safety management standard, but aimed specifically at the farm sector," says David Shanahan, an occupational health and safety project manager with the organization.

The CSA worked with all aspects of the industrial sector to develop the industrial standard, released in 2006. Promotional material describes the standard as providing an overall framework to assist in managing preventive and protective measures, emergency preparedness, training, procurement issues, documentation, legal and other safety-related requirements.

Shanahan says that the farm management safety blueprint will embrace the realities of the sector. Farming, he notes, poses special hazards and situations, such as livestock, not encountered on the typical industrial site.

Elizabeth Rankin, the CSA project manager in charge of the document, says the CSA decided to develop the proposal because "we see a real need there." It's not a full-blown standard; the Association will have to make a business case before deciding whether to undertake the next steps for developing a national standard, she says.

The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association has sponsored the document in part. Shanahan, who co-ordinates a committee that addresses farm machinery, says most CSA standards are adoptions of international or U.S. standards for equipment and apply to the design and performance of farm machinery. Some may be motivated by national concerns and sponsored by national organizations, such as the Canadian Agriculture Safety Association.

They are used to ensure "the safe design of the equipment so as to ensure that the farmers and the people around them are safeguarded from the various hazards that are part of the machinery," and may also address issues of compatibility between tractors and tilling equipment, lighting and the marking of tractors and farm machinery. They are used not only by buyers but also by manufacturers, provincial regulators and distributors to make sure the equipment has the appropriate safety systems built into them.

"It really helps them (regulators) to know what they should be looking for when they're coming on to a farm and when they're advising farmers on safety for their equipment," says Shanahan.

Standards are often initiated by international efforts to harmonize equipment safety features, such as the CSA's adoption of international safety standards in 2007 for rollover protection in farm machinery.

A poor accident record frequently motivates the standards-making process. Such was the case for establishing a new standard on front-end loaders for tractors in 2006, says Shanahan.

He explains that, although front-end loaders used for construction and those used for tractors were expected to function in the same way, the construction models were more rugged and safely designed than those used on the farm. "There was a desire to bring the safety criteria and design criteria for agricultural front end loaders up to the same level as construction front end loaders," he explains.

But it's one thing to develop standards and an altogether different challenge to make their use commonplace. The standards are voluntary. "There is nothing in them that is legally binding," Shanahan says. He admits that there are situations where some manufacturers still don't comply with standards made in the early 1990s. The Ontario Farm Implements Act, however, does require some farm equipment to meet certain CSA, International Organization for Standardization and American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers safety standards.

He also points out that Canada has only a limited influence on international equipment manufacturers. Working with the association's U.S. counterparts, as the CSA is currently doing to develop standards for portable grain augers, helps to create a greater pressure on the companies to adopt the standards because a larger, North American market is involved.

Why should farmers look for CSA-approved equipment?

"One reason is that they can be confident in the manufacture of the equipment," says Shanahan. "If they (manufacturers) are warranting the fact that their products are made to a recognized international standard; they (farmers) can expect a certain amount of information and a certain confidence in working with the safety authorities that their equipment meets the safety standards for themselves and for their family." BF