Precision Agriculture

Farm safety improved with no extra effort

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Lars Petter Blikom

Author

February 10, 2022

Published

4 min

Reading

“For 50 years I stirred the spray tanks with my bare hands, and drove mist blowers with open tractors. These pesticides are the reason I am so strong and healthy today"

Every farmer today has heard this said by the generation before them. It’s no secret that farmers have taken lightly on farm safety and good practices for handling chemicals in their business. The hazards involved are rarely immediate, rather they increase with more exposure. It’s the kind of risk you forget about in the daily routines.

I am not an alarmist. I will not claim immediate death will follow if you handle a pesticide without gloves. But realistically, the world, in general, has become more diligent in managing such risks, and the farming industry needs to follow. In the future, HSE will be more and more important. As will be experienced through more attention from auditors.

In short, 4 simple rules will make you a HSE champion:

  1. Don’t violate application rate and volume limits
  2. Don’t violate re-entry and withholding periods
  3. Wear suitable personal protective equipment
  4. Have documentation to prove above 3 bullets


At Farmable, we focus on freeing up office time for farmers, so they can focus on growing food. Our latest feature, the Safe Spraying Module, makes HSE compliance easy.

Don’t violate re-entry and withholding periods

Chemicals used in farming typically come with these two limits:
  • Re-entry period: A number of days where people shouldn’t enter the field because of residues on the plants.
  • Withholding period: A number of days before eating the crop because of residues on the produce.
These time periods are hard to keep track of on paper or in excel.
With Farmable, however, such limitation periods are always readily available to all crew at the farm. This keeps them aware of any hazards.


Wear suitable personal protective equipment

People forget things, so we remind them. When executing a spray job in the Farmable app, the spray operator needs to check two HSE items before starting the job.
Admittedly, this doesn’t guarantee the operator actually uses PPE, but at least he or she has gotten the reminder. They can’t just forget – it’s a conscious choice.

Document your farm safety compliance

We believe the farmer should be in the field. Farm safety should be on top of everyone’s mind. And documentation should be automatic and up to date at any given point in time.

By using the features described above, all spray logs are always up to date, and safety checklists are stored for future reference. In addition, all farm crew have the latest status on chemical hazards in their app.

Farm safety improved. With no extra effort or office time. Just check out our new module.

Safe Spraying Module