While watching RFD-TV one night, Russ Beckner saw a segment that showed a California mom driving a tractor around with her two young kids in the tractor bucket.
Appalled, Beckner called the network and explained why they should never show such actions — if the tractor were to hit a bump, he told them, the kids could fall out and be injured or killed.
Beckner, a member of Butler Rural Electric Cooperative, has worked on safety issues for more than 60 years. When he was a Boy Scout, he taught new Scouts how to safely use a pocketknife. During his career at Procter & Gamble, his responsibilities included safety monitoring in construction and manufacturing.
Russ Beckner and his grandson, Ryland Beckner, have made it their mission to build awareness of potential safety issues on the farm.
When he retired from P&G, that safety mindset carried over as he started helping his son, Jason, on Jason’s farm. People tend to associate farms with peaceful fields, fresh air, and contented cows, but as all farmers know, agriculture can be a dangerous way to make a living — and a farm is a dangerous place to live.
Between eight and 12 people, on average, are killed on farms every year in Ohio. Thousands more sustain injuries. “I became aware of farm injuries locally, statewide, and nationally, and I thought we could make a difference,” Russ says.
Thus was the genesis of what has grown into the Southwest Ohio Family Farm Safety program, with a mission to improve those statistics.
“I think it’s important to make people aware of being safe around farm equipment,” says Russ’ grandson, Ryland Beckner, a freshman at Talawanda High School in Oxford, who’s been actively involved in the program since he was in elementary school. “I feel that we’ve saved a few lives with what we’ve done. We’ve talked to hundreds of people. A lot of people have heard our message. Hopefully, out of that number, at least a few have been saved from doing something they would have done if they had not heard it.”
Russ and Ryland distribute coloring books and literature promoting farm safety to area farm-related businesses, where customers can help themselves to the information.
The Beckners also have booth displays they set up at various community events, such as the Butler Rural Electric Cooperative Family Day, where they talk to visitors and have demonstrations — after all, Russ says, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a demonstration is worth a thousand pictures.
“For a grain bin safety demonstration, we have a grain bin model, and we fill it with soybeans,” Ryland says. “The children put in a little plastic figure. We pull a slide out and let the beans flow into a pan, and of course, that little figure just disappears in about two seconds. I don’t think they are going to forget that.”
Visitors can test their reaction speed in another demonstration. “As soon as they hear the sound or see the light, they hit a button, and we can show that it generally takes about 0.7 seconds to react,” Russ says. “Then we show them how many times a lawnmower blade or a power take-off shaft on a tractor would rotate during that time — between 10 and 50 times, depending on the motor. It emphasizes that no matter how young or how fast you are, you can get hurt.”
A “no riding” demonstration uses a small model of a tractor — similar to the scene Russ saw on RFD. Kids place a plastic farmer figurine in the driver’s seat, and a figure of a child is placed on the fender. Two textured floor mats serve as the farm field. “We tell the children, ‘If you can move the tractor from one end of the field to the other — which is about 5 feet — without the little girl falling off, we’ll put your name in for a prize,'” Russ says. “They never make it. I can tell them, ‘Don’t ride on a tractor fender,’ but will they remember? I don’t know. I think they’ll remember that little figure falling off and sometimes going right underneath the wheels. That makes an impression.”
