When it comes to the farming industry, wearing personal protective equipment, PPE, or safety workwear is crucial to protect your workers from various on-field injuries and infections. Many businesses face high worker insurance premiums, machinery damage, and decreased productivity and profits due to different agriculture sector accidents every year.
There’s always an element of risk related to a farmers’ wellbeing. The good thing is that you can take necessary precautions to meet health and safety standards and protect farmers from different accidents and injuries. Apart from using the proper safety equipment, it’s vital to buy products that fit well and are comfortable. If the gear is not suitable, your employee will be less productive while wearing it.
Here, we will discuss various PPE types and essential gear you can choose for your farming business, depending on your worker’s job nature.
PPE Types For Everyday Farming Tasks
When it comes to everyday farming tasks, farmers and their staff are continuously exposed to a range of hazards, which requires them to keep some necessary protective gear on hand all the time.
Reinforced Boots
These boots are meant to provide farmers with an additional layer of protection against falling equipment. They also offer much-needed grip to avoid different accidents, including falls, slips, and trips, especially on mud and wet surfaces.
Cut-Resistant Gloves
These specialized gloves provide their users with an additional layer of defense against potential injuries while operating sharp equipment or machinery.
Helmets & Hardhats
They tend to offer required protection to the user’s head and protect them from falling objects and incurring various head injuries resulting from falls, slips, and trips from heights.
Safety Harnesses
During extended work at heights, repairing tall machinery, or restocking a loft, it’s best to wear a tethered safety harness to avoid falls and injuries.
Hearing Protection
Operating different machines such as livestock, vehicles, or power tools at farms can often be noisy, causing potential hearing loss. Therefore, it’s essential to use noise-reducing equipment at all times.
PPE Types For Dangerous Agricultural Chemicals
Essential agrochemicals, like fertilizers, disinfectants, and pesticides, can often become increasingly hazardous if used without protective workwear. As a farming business owner, you need to provide your farming staff with some necessary equipment to protect their skin, lungs, and other body parts when handling or spraying various chemicals.
Safety Glasses
When your workers are at an increased risk of facing drifting clouds of vapors, it’s best to provide them with safety glasses to protect their eyes.
Burn-Resistant Gloves
These gloves help ensure your hands protection from hazardous chemical-related burns. Certain types of plastic or rubber will only be suitable for specific chemicals, which is why you need to check the manufacturers' instructions before using your product.
Chemically-Resistant Boots
A pair of chemically-resistant boots help protect your feet from different forms of spillages. These are very important if the wearer has to walk across treated surfaces, such as a freshly-sprayed field.
Chemically-Resistant Coveralls
Wearing these protective coveralls will help ensure no areas of your body remain exposed while you or your worker is handling hazardous chemicals.
Respiratory Masks
Using the correct breathing mask helps stop vapors, gases, and specks of dust from damaging your lungs and throat. Dust can also cause severe lung irritation, so respiratory gear and dust masks are essential during jobs that might expose you to high particulate matter levels, such as harvesting, threshing, and processing crops.
Provide Adequate PPE Training To Your Staff
Finally, always provide your employees with adequate amounts of training on how to use safety workwear correctly. This is vital because all of your workers need to understand their on-field responsibilities to keep themselves and others safe from injuries. That’s why it’s critical to train farmers about using, storing, and monitoring various PPE.
About Work Life Workwear
At Work Life Workwear, we are immensely proud to provide the entire Alberta community with high-quality protective workwear products and services. Visit our online store to see our specialized items or contact us for personalized service.
Leave a Reply