MORGAN — A one-quart bucket looks almost filled to the brim with corn and grain. Then, with a sudden pop, the bucket almost completely empties.
The demonstration was part of the Kid’s Safety Carnival at Farmfest on Thursday, with this station specifically showing the danger of a “grain bridge.” This happens when wet or moldy grain crusts over and forms a bridge over a hollow space, potentially burying a farm worker in seconds. It’s part of the vital demonstrations meant to keep kids safe on the farm.
“We’re on a farm. (We’re) around a farming community, and you just never know when you’re going to be around a piece of equipment, whether it’s at home or a friend’s house,” Reed Adriam said. “It’s good knowledge to have, common knowledge that I feel it’s disappearing. There’s less farm kids, some of that common safety, that common sense safety is sadly disappearing.”
Adriam was out with his son — Braeden, 13 — at the carnival in the safety tent on the final day of Farmfest. The safety carnival was run this year by a partnership between two local FFA clubs.
Elizabeth Rupp, an Ag teacher in Tracy, said the Sleepy Eye FFA partners with another area FFA to put on the carnival, and on Thursday it was Tracy’s turn. There were 10 stations at the carnival, going over everything from pinch points in chains, to the dangers of grain bins to what mysterious liquids might be found on the farm.
“There’s a bunch of different liquids, so one is (is it) motor oil or is it chocolate syrup? Another one is (is it) Windex or is it blue Gatorade,” Rupp said. “Whenever you’re on a farm there might be mystery chemicals in a container that may look like something that you drink at your house, so (we’re) just making kids (are) aware of what’s out there and making sure they don’t consume something that they shouldn’t.”
The carnival isn’t just designed to be fun. It’s also aimed at saving lives. A 2015 Star Tribune article found that, “More than 210 work-related deaths occurred on Minnesota farms from 2003 to 2013 — an increase of more than 30 percent when compared with a decade earlier. A Star Tribune review of those fatal cases shows that at least two-thirds involved practices that violate federal workplace rules.” A February 2020 proclamation by Gov. Tim Walz stated that, “At least 10 people have died in farming-related accidents in Minnesota since June 2019.”
“We hear about how many people die in a grain bin accidents every year, even people that know how to be safe. One second could really affect how you live, the rest of your life, so it’s (important to) remind (people) of the safety procedures that need to happen,” Rup said.
Thankfully, it seemed those messages were being imported.
“There’s a lot of things about safety around farm objects, like gravity bins, big containers with grain, and pinch points with a gear and about (not wearing) loose clothes,” Braeden said.
He wasn’t the only one learning lessons. Boyd Lang is a seven-and-a-half year-old from Comfrey who went to the carnival with his grandfather, Joel. He said he learned about, “safety stuff” and said his favorite station was the gravity box.
“(I learned) never to be in the box, especially when it’s like a big one and it doesn’t have a ladder to get out,” he said.
Rupp said that, on average, the carnival serves around 600 kids a year. This year, they’d already seen around 450 through the first two does.