Farm Safety and Security Protocols

Inspect cattle-tight fencing, livestock gates, and field-road gates for cuts, gaps, or knocked-down sections. Note pasture corners where gates are routinely left chained-but-unlocked — that's the most common entry path for trespassers and theft.

Confirm tractors, sprayers, and combines are parked inside the locked yard or shop overnight. Pull keys from cabs (catalytic converter and GPS-receiver theft are common). Verify the fuel-yard gate and pump-key cabinet are locked.

Walk the shop, grain-bin row, livestock barns, and chemical building after dusk. Replace burned-out fixtures and confirm motion-sensor lights trigger. Pull the last 7 days of camera footage to verify recording is active.

Confirm Restricted-Use Pesticide storage is locked, posted with the required signage, and inventoried. Check for damaged jugs, expired products, and missing SDS sheets. Verify the spill kit is stocked and the secondary-containment floor is dry.

Sum aboveground diesel, gasoline, and lube-oil capacity. Farms over 1,320 gallons need an SPCC plan with secondary containment for the largest tank plus 10%. Update the plan if a tank was added or moved since last review.

Check NH3 nurse tanks for valve integrity, hose cracks, and PPE staging (full-face shield, chemical gloves, 5-gallon emergency water). Confirm the lock-and-chain on the bleeder valve and that tanks are parked away from public roads.

Cycle credentials for John Deere Operations Center, Climate FieldView, Bushel, the grain-marketing portal, and online banking. Use the password manager — shared sticky notes in the office are the most common breach vector on family farms.

Apply pending OS and accounting-software updates to office PCs (QuickBooks, CenterPoint). Push firmware updates for in-cab displays (4640 Universal, GreenStar, Trimble) before next planting or harvest pass.

Confirm two-factor authentication on the operating-loan bank login, the grain merchandiser portal, the crop-insurance agent portal, and the FSA farmers.gov account. Wire-fraud against farms typically lands during harvest cash-flow weeks.

Review user lists in Operations Center, the dairy-management software, and any cloud agronomy tool. Remove H-2A and seasonal-crew accounts whose contracts have ended. Office manager keeps the master roster.

Cover EPA-approved Worker Protection Standard handler curriculum: REI, PPE, decontamination, central posting, emergency response. Annual training is required for every handler before they touch a labeled product.

Walk the shop with the crew: PTO shields stay on, ROPS up and seatbelt fastened on every tractor, no entry into a running grain bin. Reference last season's near-misses by name so the briefing is concrete, not abstract.

Confirm visitor sign-in, boot-wash or boot-cover station, and shower-in/shower-out (where required) at the livestock entrance. Verify the Secure Food Supply plan is current for FAD response (HPAI, ASF, FMD).

Refresh the laminated card in the shop and each tractor cab: 911, county dispatch, fire chief, vet, agronomist, fuel supplier, anhydrous supplier, county extension, insurance agent. Include GPS coordinates for each shop, bin site, and remote field entrance.

Verify clear paths from the shop, chemical building, grain-handling area, and livestock barns. Confirm fire extinguishers are charged and accessible. Note any equipment parked in front of bay doors that would block escape.

Pick one scenario: NH3 release at the nurse tank, sprayer rollover with herbicide spill, or barn fire with livestock to evacuate. Time the response. Debrief on what failed — radio dead zones, missing PPE sizes, locked gates without keys.

Sit with the agent on farm-liability, equipment-floater, livestock-mortality, and MPCI/RP coverage. Check coverage limits against current equipment and herd values. Walk through any incidents (injuries, near-misses, equipment fires, livestock losses) since last review.