2021 Pennsylvania Farm Fatal Injury Summary

This report summarizes Pennsylvania's farm fatality data for 2021. In that year there were 16 known farm and agricultural fatalities in Pennsylvania. This is a fifty-nine percent decrease from the 39 fatalities documented in 2020.

Table 1 provides summary demographic statistics of the 2021 fatality cases. Data once again suggest that the very young and older adults may be at higher risk of fatal incidents. Five of the cases (31.2%) were in adults 65 years and older. Consistent with previous years, all victims under the age of 5 were Anabaptist. In 2021, all victims were male; gender comparisons between years are difficult in part because the gender is not always noted in the media reports. For example, in 2020 there were five female victims, but 21 of the 39 were listed as gender unknown.

Three sources of data were used to compile this report including farm-related death certificates from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, media reports of farm-related fatalities, and Aginjurynews.org. All three databases were cross-referenced and checked for duplication and non-farming incidents.

Farm and Agricultural Injury Coding

The Farm and Agricultural Injury Classification (FAIC) Code is a classification scheme used to separate out incidents not related to work in production agriculture. FAIC codes allow identification of farm production work cases as well as unique situational exposures in production agriculture (e.g., non-workers in work environments). Table 2 provides a summary of FAIC classification of Pennsylvania’s 2021 fatalities. Nine of the 16 fatality cases (56.3%) happened in an agricultural occupation position with nine injuries classified as FAIC-1 Farm Production Work.

Fatalities by Injury Source

Since 2000, fatality reports have been used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) to characterize primary and secondary sources of injury. The source of injury or illness identifies the object, bodily motion, or exposure which directly produced or inflicted the previously identified injury or illness. For example, if the worker were operating a farm tractor when it rolled over on the victim, the source would be the farm tractor.

The OIICS system was utilized to categorize each fatality in a manner that is comparable across years and between states. Table 3 categorizes the sixteen fatal incidents by those sources and provides a brief description for each.

Off-Road and Industrial Vehicles - Powered

 Animal Transport

Electrical

Plants, Trees, Vegetation- Not Processed

Compressed by equipment or object, N.E.C.

Inhalation of Harmful Substance

Exposure to Oxygen Deficiency, N.E.C.

Firearms

Summary

Sixteen farm and agricultural-related fatalities were recorded in Pennsylvania in 2021. A major source of these fatalities (37.5%) came from tractors running over operators or overturning onto the operator. When operating a tractor, drivers should always wear the seatbelt if their tractor is equipped with the rollover protection structure (ROPS) when in motion. ROPS are 99.9% effective when combined with the use of a seatbelt for tractor rollovers.

Retrofit ROPs options are available for older farm tractors that pre-date ROPs as standard OEM equipment. More information can be found about retrofit options at National ROPS website.  Penn State’s Ag Safety & Health team is pleased to announce that starting in late 2022 we will make funds available to Pennsylvania farmers to help offset the costs of tractor retrofits with a ROPS system.  Contact Peggy Newell (png1@psu.edu) for more information. 

There were three fatalities in children ages 0 – 4 in 2021. Due to this age group’s inability to comprehend hazards and cause and effect, supervision of children by an adult and keeping the children in safe areas on the farm is the primary way to reduce these fatalities. Simple education, discussion about hazards, and setting boundaries for this preschool age group can help protect them from farm hazards such as manure pits, grain bins, and areas where tractor and equipment is being operated.

Additionally, four out of the five older adult victims died because of a tractor-related incident.  Further examination of the incidents should be conducted to learn why tractors are such a significant hazard for older farmers.

The number of fatalities in 2021 dropped significantly from previous years. Currently, there is not an explanation for this change but note that the data we rely on is imperfect and some cases may have been missed by the Commonwealth death certificates system. Hopefully, there is a permanent decline in fatalities across Pennsylvania and the many efforts being made to make farm work safe are having an impact. Time will tell as we examine the data in the coming years if this year was an anomaly or if this is a downward trend in agricultural related fatalities.