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Autonomous machines bring new safety concerns

The leader of a farm safety organization says autonomous machinery presents a whole new challenge for keeping farm families safe.

Brian Kuhl with Progressive Agriculture tells Brownfield autonomous machine use is growing, whether it’s tractors, automatic feeders, feed pushers, or milking machines. “We’re seeing them being implemented for efficiency. We want to reduce costs, buit on the same hand, when we reduce those costs, we bring those new technologies in, we’re implementiubng new dangers.”

Kuhl says people are just beginning to consider the different precautions they need to take around unmanned machines. “As some of these autonomous vehicles become more situated around youth as well as around families, how do we teach those safety behaviors to those that are going to be near those?”

Kuhl says another concern is farmers are putting younger children in larger farm equipment since automation is handling many of the tasks children used to do.  He says many of the farm incidents involve kids visiting their grandparents or other family on farms.