Farm Safety Plan? Common Farm Dangers to Avoid

Farming is dangerous. And with economic uncertainty, it becomes even more dangerous. Would you be able to handle any of these common farm dangers? Most homesteaders and small farms wouldn’t have a clue.

With this approach, you can protect the physical security of family members. You can stay safe from trespassing, wild animals, theft, and other common farm dangers.

Will you be ready for problems that will arise?

To learn more about running a prosperous homestead, join us at https://www.prosperityhomestead.org/newsletter/?utm_source=005-r0929a&utm_medium=spreaker&utm_campaign=i0824a&utm_content=common-farm-dangers-to-avoid

#FarmSafety #EquipmentOperation #PrivateProperty #PhysicalSecurity #SafetyProcedure
#FirstAid

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Your physical security on your homestead orsmall farm is critical to your success in
this lifestyle. I'm justin hit withProsperity Homestead. We've had a number of
challenges with a property that I'm managing, which includes trespassers using a TVs and
the slow progress of projects. Nowone of these sounds like it's going to

(00:25):
impact physical security. While they're bothrelated, and we're going to talk about
that, I'm justin hit with Prosperityhomestead. If I haven't already mentioned that.
My point being here is that thephysical security of your family on your
small farmer homestead is not necessarily betterin a rural area. In fact,

(00:45):
in a rural area, there's equipmentstolen, there's animals stolen, there's animals
molested, there's fences they get cutfor hunters, there's trespassing. There's a
lot of different problems in a ruralarea that very often don't make the page
of news because they are perceived asimpacting fewer people. The latest BLM riot

(01:06):
or the crime and stuff that happensin cities happens in the counties as well,
but in a smaller volume. Nowtoday, and I don't I'm not
trying to scare anybody. Now todayyou can have cartel activity in the backyard.
But even when I was a kid, I was hiking out in the
woods. I'm on Amish property checkingthings out, and I find a giant

(01:26):
marijuana grow operation. This is inSaint Mary's County, Maryland. The Amish
were not growing marijuana. Somebody haddone the same thing I was doing and
trespassed on the property and planted outa grow area. Because this was kind
of disused land, and so thereisn't any more of it today. It's

(01:47):
it's just a reality. So again, your physical security is important, at
least on your own property, becauseyou don't want to be out feeding the
chickens in the morning and have somebodyin your barn stealing your tractor, and
then what do you do if youwalk up on that kind of person.
Now, and a lot of themessage boards and forums they talk about,
you know, we're just going toshoot them from the porch, because this
is the country and this is howwe do it well. Law's rules and

(02:09):
applications still apply even if you're ina rural setting. So I'm going to
talk a little bit about the physicalsecurity and the response to that security.
I want to first say that anyequipment or a non living thing, tools,
equipment and stuff will be difficult toreplace, but it is not worth

(02:30):
more than a human life. Soit's better in those cases to collect evidence
and not engage in the person who'sstealing, because it could be, as
the sheriff was telling me, somecrackhead with a handgun, because that is
a more common thing. Somebody isstealing for a reason. They're coming onto
your property. They're grabbing chainsaws andstring tremmors and other tools they can turn

(02:52):
into quick cash, and they're doingit because they have a drug addiction or
they have a problem. Now it'snot an excuse, it is a reality
of life. And so someone whofeels that you're taking away there what they
most desire, what they're willing torisk legal prosecution, it may not be
worth the engagement. However, ifyou are surprised by somebody, no different

(03:14):
than being surprised by a bear,a coyote, a fox, or a
hawk or something that's going to hurtyour animals, you do want to have
a firearm. You do want tobe proficient in that firearm, and you
do want to make sure that youcould use it in your self defense,
and that you are disciplined enough notto use it in an unnecessarily offensive manner.

(03:35):
What do I mean by that?Just because you're on a farm,
maybe you got some hogs, maybeyou've got a cemetery, doesn't mean you
can just shoot somebody. Okay,Now I made jokes about this, and
I probably shouldn't joke about it becauseI'm in a position where you might take
it as advice. But you've seenin the movies where somebody's out on the
farm and they just vanish. Thatis not what we're talking about here.

(03:57):
There may be a situation where harmmay be coming of your animals or family
and you may need to necessarily usea firearm in an offensive manner, but
most likely that can be justified asdefensive. While your personal self is not
in danger, the animal or yourfamily members life are in immediate danger.

(04:20):
I am not going to offer legaladvice here, and then I'm also going
to acknowledge that there's a spectrum betweenwhat's going on in South Africa versus what
might go on here in the UnitedStates or in Europe. But it's a
reality that things are changing, thingsare danger So what do we want to
do. What we want to dois look at our property in layers,

(04:42):
just as we have the permaculture zoneswhere we have zone one. We want
to basically make sure that as peopletransition from the outside to the inside of
your property, as they move throughzone five. Maybe hunters are in your
zone five because it's an untouched wildernessarea or it's maybe harvested every thirty years.
Hunters maybe in that area, sodo you know whether they enter or

(05:05):
exit from that area. Now,the perimeter of a zone five may be
rather large, so we may wantto concentrate trail cameras, for example,
on the access roads in or out. We may want to periodically patrol the
perimeter of our property. Now,when I say patrol, that doesn't mean
you're marching around with a rifle.But it may be checking your fences for

(05:26):
down trees. It may be justchecking your fences for cuts or breaks,
and it maybe also looking for newtrails or activity. Considering the property line
as a fence. So your trailclearing activity on your property line may open
the opportunity for more people to travelon your property. However, it tends
to make people travel along defined routeswhere you can then collect evidence with a

(05:50):
cellular trailcam, CCTV or other means. Do you see what we're talking about
here? We want early warning ofindividuals coming onto the property, and we
want clarity about who, what,when, and where that individual is on
that property, so that if somethingshould go missing, you'll have a better
idea about when or who made itgo missing. You as people move towards

(06:14):
your zone one, which is yourhousehold, and that should be the point
of retreat when it comes to somethingan engagement on your property, and in
a private consultation we can talk inmore details. I'm not trying to scare
anybody here. I'm just trying tosay if there was a bear coming into
your property and it triggers a cameraout on the outer perimeter of your property,
and it's heading towards your chicken house, that is what you want to

(06:38):
know. You don't if it's headedtowards exiting your property. That is not
as important because skunks and deer andbears and turkey and all that stuff will
come in and go on your propertyas they please because they're wild animals.
But you do want to know ifa human is coming on your property and
moving towards your barn, where yourtractor is, where you leave your keys

(07:00):
in the tractor because you don't wantto look for your keys in the morning.
Can you see what we're talking abouthere? Early warning? Now,
the next factor I kind of mentionedthere is you don't want to leave your
keys in vehicles. So I've hada sheriff's department out to my property because
I have a little challenge with someATVs and some hunters, and so I'm
passing along some of the advice theyshared. But it's a very real that

(07:23):
if you're not locking up your equipmentthat someone can walk off with it.
So trailer hitch locks, use ofcords or cable to lock wheels on larger
equipment. Removing the keys from largerequipment, you can use a lockbox on
site that has a combination lock.Now you might be saying, well,

(07:44):
if I put the keys in acombo box, then now the bad guys
know where all the keys are.But I'm saying, if you leave the
keys in the ignition of your tractor, then they know where your keys are.
If they break the box on thewall, we show the We can
show the criminal intent to steal.If they just turn the key on your

(08:05):
tractor, it's hard to know whetheror not they're just borrowing your tractor,
and you're now going to have amore difficult legal process. So what we're
doing here is we're establishing a zonalapproach to safety. So around the building
you're gonna lock stuff up. Ifyou leave a tractor out in the field,
you're going to take the keys withyou. Now, a lot of

(08:28):
excavators and tractors and stuff have pushbuttons. They don't need a key.
You can just push a button,it starts right up. A lot of
tractors you could hot wire them.They don't really need a key. My
point being though, is that isthere some form of positive barrier. So
if there's a perimeter fence, that'sone positive barrier on the property itself.
If you have gates things like that. If you put a camera on the

(08:52):
gate and somebody pulls in a truckwith a trailer on it to steal your
excavator, then you now have positiveinformation about them being there. You have
a description of a vehicle, youhave something to work on if they go.
And if you park a piece ofequipment out in the middle of the
field and it wanders off, thenyou are in a situation where it's hard

(09:13):
to evidence who made it wander off. So you may want to keep a
trail camera, a cellular trail camerain the vehicle and just basically put a
post in the ground, not toput a post in the ground, but
just hammer a steak in the groundor one of the little metal step ends,
and then put a trail camera onyour vehicle so that you at least

(09:35):
know at what time did they eitherdisable the trail camera or that they hopped
into your vehicle when they should nothave been hopping into your vehicle. A
lot of farms that I've worked with, we have a designated area to park
equipment. So there might be ashop and the parking lot of that shop,
or the front area of the shopis under CCTV, and so the
majority of the equipment is returned tothat location at night and parked, or

(09:58):
it isn't side of an enclosure andthen parked. So you might have a
cattle enclosure, for example, thathas a camera on the main stock yard
where the water is so that youcan monitor animal health. But if someone
were to enter that space, they'regoing to walk through that cameras, the
cameras of zone of visibility, andyou're going to get a positive identification as

(10:18):
they're on their way to the tractorthat you were maybe you're cutting the fields
or something like that. Some vehicleswill have cameras inside them so that when
you fire up operation, there's acamera on the operator. The key is
is know where these things are,install them where they're appropriate, and then
be mindful that someone could jump ina piece of equipment and take off on

(10:39):
it, because it wouldn't be unusualto see a tractor coming and going from
a larger property or to have someonecome pick up equipment for repair. So
we're talking about zones. As wemove closer to the house or as we
move closer to buildings of interest,they have tools. Do you have an
alarm system? If someone kicking thedoor of your workshop, would you know

(11:01):
the difference between they're in your workshopor they're in your house? Now,
a lot of these things don't costa lot of money, and some of
these things are actually biological in nature. So for example, geese, if
you have a workshop and near theworkshop you have livestock areas, the animals
coming in at night can act asa deterrent or a early warning if you

(11:24):
understand and know the habits of youranimals, so there ought to be a
real physical security plan. It needsto consider wildlife and humans. And then
here's the last thing. It needsto consider the safety and wellbeing of your
animals and the people in your propertywhen it comes to just general bad stuff
that can happen on a farm,if a tractor should fall on you,

(11:48):
or you break a leg out inthe woods. Would you have radios and
know how to use them so thatyou can communicate with base camp, which
is primarily your zone one, orto call for help. Do people know
where you're working on the property?So if you're out there with a chainsaw,
are you wearing proper protective equipment?And are you in a location where

(12:09):
that you could be easily found?And have you let somebody know that you're
at that location and when you intendto return. Now, a lot of
folks with five acres or five hundredacres can have the same problems. Do
you have first aid kits readily available? Do you have a first aid kit
in your vehicle that's suitable for commonproblems you might face, including a tourniquet

(12:30):
because a chainsaw incident, as aScott Vernon of Sustainable Homestead Institute keeps telling
me, typically has a thousand ormore stitches. And so that's why I
wear the protective equipment that he insistsI wear on his property. I wear
it wherever I go because if I'moperating a chainsaw, there's certain types of
procedure to operate a chainsaw that's goingto protect my interests in safety. But

(12:52):
I don't operate a chainsaw alone.I always have somebody know where I am
or working with me while operating achainsaw. I know on the YouTube,
and a lot of these videos abouthow to do agriculture, they gloss over
these topics because they're not sexy topicsand they're not something you want to be
thinking about all the time. Butespecially in today's economy, especially with the

(13:16):
rising cost of food and the insecuritythat comes with supply chain issues, more
and more farms are targets for individualswho might just want to come in and
grab a chicken. They might wantto grab a goat, they might want
to want We had a farm aroundhere that had a bunch of cows stolen,
and they are also being agriculture isnow increasingly a part of cartel activity.

(13:41):
So when organized crime are raising farms, whether they're growing marijuana, or
they're growing vegetables, or they're stealingcattle at on the way to market,
you need to be aware that farmingis dangerous, and not only as farming
dangerous as it requires a safety plan. And that's the last thing I want

(14:01):
to leave you with. The bestvalue that we've delivered for many of our
clients recently, is a risk managementapproach to a safety plan. Basically,
what kind of safety procedures do youhave in your greenhouse? What kind of
safety procedures do you have around animals? Many times these are just checklists,
by the way, but is everybodyprepared to know how to handle situations?

(14:22):
For example pigs. Pigs can runright up under you and you can end
up with a concussion and then theywill eat you. So are you prepared
to work in pairs for the pigoperation or are you handling smaller pigs rather
than handing four or five hundred poundpigs In every area of your farm,

(14:45):
just like we do zones in eachzone has particular activities in the permaculture design
methodology. Having an operation or safetyplan, or even a safety policy helps
identify not only how we're taking careof being stewards of the land, but
how are we protecting the individuals there, get our guests, our family members,

(15:07):
our livestock to have maximum health.After you've taken care of the core
elements of your property, anybody who'strespassing on your property, how do you
handle that? What's the phone numberto the sheriff's department, What is the
procedure for engaging someone who's trespassing ornot engaging someone who's trespassing because you have
proper documentation about their trespassed activity.We can help you develop these things for

(15:31):
your small farm, homestead or estate, and we can also help you implement
these plans, some of which canbe a booklet, a little tiny booklet
that's available in different areas. Soif you've ever seen next to the telephone
in the case of emergency call,it can be as simple as that.
But in larger established agriculture, itcould be the phone numbers to the hospital,

(15:54):
and then how are you going toget to the hospital. It might
be where the farm jacks are located, and always returning the farm jacks the
same location so that we can getthat damn tractor off you. And by
the way, to get a tractoroff of somebody, you're gonna need some
six by sixes or some two someyoung two by fours, and you're gonna
need a pry bar, and you'regonna need some farm some farm jacks in

(16:17):
order to lift the equipment off ofsomebody. But the equipment wouldn't be on
you if the equipment was properly blockedwhen you jacked it up in the first
place to do the repair. Soyou see what we're talking about. A
lot of these training classes are regularlyavailable. It doesn't require a lot of
investment of your time to take achainsaw safety class or to learn how to
drop a tree properly, or howto tether something to drag it with a

(16:41):
tractor. All of these things cansave your life even if you never get
a home invasion, or you neverget somebody trespassing, or you never get
a TVs on your property. I'mjust it hit with prosperity homestead. I
hope I haven't scared you. Thisisn't meant to be scary because these are
actual things that happen been on aregular basis across the world when it comes

(17:03):
to farming, and they're all preventative. You can prevent, you can evidence
you can avoid these problems with alittle bit of education and a little bit
of planning. A safety guide withquarterly briefings of that safety guide for all
family members and staff that work ona property is one of the ways to
start. And those safety guys areavailable. They actually come with a lot

(17:26):
of the equipment that you have sothat you can know that your operators are
safe, that your family members aresafe, that your animals are safe,
and that ultimately you can enjoy thislifestyle of freedom, of abundance and food
security. Again, I'm justin hit. Was sustainable again? I'm just in
hit with Prosperity Homestead. Visit usat www dot prosperity homestead dot org to

(17:52):
ask your questions. Thanks for listeningand I'll see you in the next podcast.