Agriculture has been one of the most dangerous industries in the U.S. and worldwide for decades. Since 2015, Aaron Yoder, the Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health at UNMC research director, has led a team of researchers and safety experts to develop the Feedyard 15 Program, a free safety training curriculum available for cattle feedyard operations. The program addresses critical safety issues commonly found in feedyard operations.
The team’s initial research revealed that in 2017 the North American Industry Classification Code (NAICS) reported an occupational fatality rate in the beef cattle ranching and farming industries of 151 fatalities per 100,000 workers. This rate was six times higher than that of the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors and 43 times higher than the rate of all industries combined.
“The cattle sector had nearly 10 percent of all fatalities, with 57 of 581 reported in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors that year,” Yoder says. “In 2017, hired workers in beef cattle ranching and farming [including feedyards] had a ‘days away from work’ rate of 316.3 out of 10,000 workers. The agriculture, forestry and fishing rate overall was 170.5. For all industries combined, this rate was 8.4.”
Additionally, nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses in the beef cattle sector increased in 2017 compared to the previous three years, while rates for all industries remained stable.
The cattle feeding industry is concentrated in the Midwest and Texas. In the first quarter of 2018, the seven-state region of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota had 586 cattle feedyards and 7,019 feedyard employees.
“This represented 53 percent of all feedyards and 49 percent of all feedyard workers at that time,” Yoder says. “The majority of those feedyards and employees [251 feedyards and 2,943 employees] were located in Nebraska and Kansas [141 feedyards, 2,968 employees]. It was estimated that this workforce consists of about 50 percent immigrant workers, many of whom have low levels of formal education and limited English proficiency.”
Agricultural injury surveillance data from that period and the seven-state region revealed that 37.7% of all reported injuries resulted from contact with livestock. With few evidence-based prevention programs and a “myriad of diverse challenges in agriculture,” Yoder and his team saw a great need for a preventative system. The result of their work is the Feedyard 15 Program.
“Safety resources on cattle feedyards may be scarce and dependent on the size of the operation,” Yoder says. “Larger feedyards may have more access to specific safety training programs or dedicated safety personnel who manage employee personal protective equipment, provide safety training and appropriate certifications, and report injuries and near misses. However, employees on smaller operations may have to be able to work multiple feedyard positions – such as cowboy, in the hospital or sick pen, processing cattle or delivering feed to animals. Clearly, the size of the operation may make a difference in the availability of safety training resources.”
Eliminating all feedyard hazards is not feasible, so Yoder and his team have worked to reduce or mitigate hazards by providing effective worker training that considers the capacity of the feedyard and engages end users in program design. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has recognized that bridging the gap between research and practice is vital because it takes many years for a health or safety research innovation to be widely used in practice.
“Many innovations never make it into practice,” Yoder says. “For the Feedyard 15 program, we used the Schulte and colleagues conceptual framework, which includes four phases: development, testing, institutionalization and evaluation. This process helps ensure that the program responds to identified needs and whether an intervention works. Evaluation measures outcomes and impact of the intervention.”
Putting research into practice
“In exploring existing safety training practices and preferences in the cattle feeding industry, we employed an approach similar to what Caffaro and colleagues used to assess what types of training were used and how they were organized,” Yoder says. “We anticipated finding differences in practices and preferences based on feedyard size. We used a 33-question survey vetted by the project’s Feedyard Safety Advisory Board.”
After completing 47 surveys, survey results showed that half of the feedyard participants had dedicated safety personnel, and nearly 93% of survey respondents provided some training to employees.
Respondents represented 11.2% of Nebraska’s feedyards and several Kansas operations. The average registered capacity of feedyard participants was 15,206 head. Capacity ranged from 200 and 113,750 head. The average number of full-time workers was 15, but responses ranged between one and 65.
Large and extra-large feedyards were more likely to report having dedicated safety personnel, but only one respondent had a full-time person devoted to safety. Those who didn’t have dedicated safety personnel reported barriers, such as the cost of hiring, time and the perception that such a position wasn’t necessary due to the operation’s small size.
With 93% who provided some training to employees, more than 82% said they offered safety instructions or training for newly hired employees. The most frequently cited training methods were hands-on practice, in-person/classroom training, and shadowing or watching another worker.
“Worker health was a less frequent training topic than animal health or safety and worker safety,” Yoder says. “Most respondents had a strong preference for hands-on training. Nearly 60 percent of participating feedyards preferred less than one hour of training sessions.”
Approximately half of the participants reported a need to train immigrant workers, and Spanish was the only language reported to be spoken by workers in these yards.
More than half of the participating feedyards were interested in a feedyard safety certification program, and 46.3% were interested in materials for conducting face-to-face training. Participants were also interested in regulatory compliance training that met the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“This was the first study to solicit information directly from feedyard employers,” Yoder says. “Based on our findings, there was a clear interest in safety training and the development of a feedyard certification program. Consistent training is imperative for all workers, particularly those in high-risk industries such as agriculture. Research has shown that task-specific training can reduce the likelihood of suffering an occupational injury. These findings, along with input from the Feedyard Safety Advisory Board, have led to the development of safety training for the top 15 hazards on cattle feedyards.”
Information about how to access these free training resources is available here.
Final thoughts
“One additional important finding from this study included the reaffirmation that the program should be conducted in partnership with industry organizations such as the Nebraska Cattlemen, insurance companies and professionals such as veterinarians,” Yoder says. “These groups and professionals are connected with feedyards who would be the end-users of a safety training program; they can provide valuable insights to guide development of the program. They also have the trust of feedyard operators, which may help with active dissemination and diffusion of the program while promoting the importance of safety within the industry.
“Working on a cattle feedyard can be risky to one’s health and safety, as proven by the occupational injury and illness data. Appropriate job-related training can be important to mitigating one’s risk and the associated risk to the feedyard and employer. By using a translational research methodology, we are hopeful that the time it takes for safety and health innovations, such as the Feedyard 15, to be used in practice may be reduced. Furthermore, through the translational process, the program is being refined to a point where it is feasible, acceptable and well-suited to meet the needs of workers and employers within the cattle feeding industry, making uptake and impact much more likely.”
Safety trainings developed for these top 15 hazards on cattle feedyards
- Slips, trips and falls
- ATVs/UTVs
- Feedmill safety
- Mobile equipment/autos
- Tractor/loader
- Cattle handling/stockmanship
- Processing cattle
- Horsemanship
- Emergency response
- Extreme weather
- Chemical hazards
- Machine shop hazards
- Electrical hazards
- Bunker silos/silage piles
- Manure lagoons
Yoder and his team are also working with the Immigrant Workforce Project, which has four objectives
- Examine the interrelations among stress, occupational injuries, physical and psychosocial health, and social well-being outcomes.
- Investigate whether risk and protective factors mediate or moderate the links among stress, occupational injuries, physical and psychosocial health, and social well-being outcomes.
- Explore whether changes in severe, perceived and physiological stress across time are linked to changes in occupational injuries, physical and psychosocial health, and social well-being outcomes.
- Develop, pilot and disseminate evidence-based bilingual health and safety materials for cattle feedyard workers, industry and partners.
