Presentation promotes farm safety

For children, growing up on a farm can provide them with a number of valuable life skills; it can also be highly dangerous, as is evident in the number of incidents in which children are injured or killed on Alberta farms each year.

As a farm safety instructor for the Alberta Farm Safety Centre, Kim Leitch aims to educate as many children in Alberta as possible on the dangers of farm living, and visited the kindergarten to Grade 6 students of Mecca Glen School Jan. 26 to deliver a presentation both fun and highly informative.

Students were advised of the many dangers on the farm, and how to identify and avoid potentially harmful or dangerous equipment.

According to Leitch, the majority of children she speaks to around the province have a good general grasp on farm safety, and she hopes by presenting her lectures, she is simply reinforcing what they already know.

“I would look at it as more of a reminder, because a lot of these kids that live in the country know this stuff, or we would assume that they would know this stuff,” she said. “Some things are completely new to them, and they will learn things that they hadn’t learned before, but a lot of what we talk about is common sense, and unfortunately common sense is not so common anymore, so it’s always good to go for a review.”

Leitch prepares a different presentation for each grade she presents to. Students in lower grades are taught the dangers of equipment that may seem innocuous by appearance, while older students are taught of the dangers associated with operating equipment such as ATVs, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, tractors and lawnmowers. She emphasizes to students that accidents on the farm can happen to anyone, and stresses the importance of the “one seat, one rider” rule when riding farm-based equipment.

The large majority of students at Mecca Glen live on farms, and many of them have heard of stories of accidents happening to kids just like them, simply as the result of natural juvenile curiosity. Having lived her life in agricultural environments, Leitch is all too aware of the many accidents that injure and claim the lives of children on farms every year.

“I hear from a lot of kids who are more than willing to tell stories of that have happened to people that they’ve known. Some of them just break your heart,” said Leitch. “Some kids just think that nothing can ever happen to them, but if you go to any emergency room or ask a doctor, you can find out how many injuries happen from these machines.”

The Alberta Farm Safety Centre is a non-profit organization based in Raymond, Alberta and was founded as a way of promoting “safe agricultural practices through the development and delivery of educational materials throughout rural Alberta,” according to its website. Its child oriented “Safety Smarts” program is now in its 14th year of operation.