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April 2017 Articles

Spiritual Corner:
Forum features feral hogs, forest management
Cattlemen, Public Lands Council Applaud
PLC, NCBA Applaud Senate Push for Transparency of Judgment Fund
Unseasonable weather affects Louisiana pastures
Make sure your bulls are ready
Use insecticides only when needed
Factors affecting bred cow valu
Workshop features drones in agriculture
Farm Bureau Welcomes Zinke Confirmation
Farm Bureau Praises Trump’s WOTUS Action
Youths earn Gerry Lane Premier Exhibitor Award
Farmers, Rangers ask Congress to Strengthen Safety Net
Farm Bureau Recognizes Monsanto for Wildfire for Wildlife Relief Donations
• Agritourism workshop teaches on-farm safety
Flavorful herbs are easy to grow
USDA Designates 13 Counties in Arkansas as Primary Natural Disaster Areas with
Beef, forage field day set for April 27 in Bossier City
Utah man arrested in Louisiana on timber theft-related charges
LSU AgCenter to hold MarketReady workshops
Just Rambling April 2017

(21 articles found)

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Agritourism workshop teaches on-farm safety

Agritourism workshop teaches on-farm safety Writer: Tobie Blanchard at 225-578-5649 or tblanchard@agcenter.lsu.edu
(03/20/17) ALBANY, La. – Strawberries glistening in the sun await thousands of children who will visit Mrs. Heather’s Strawberry Farm in Albany this spring. In addition to strawberries, the you-pick farm has a picnic area, chickens, face painting, a jump pillow, swings and slides.
Mrs. Heather’s is popular destination for school field trips from Baton Rouge, New Orleans and McComb, Mississippi, and everywhere in between, and it was the setting of an LSU AgCenter workshop on agritourism safety on March 9.
Dora Ann Hatch, AgCenter agritourism coordinator, said the workshop outlined safety steps for those interested in agritourism.
“We have certified tourism operations as well as those trying to get into agritourism, so they have to learn what they need to do to make the farms they will eventually develop safe,” Hatch said.
Marsha Salzwedel, an agricultural youth safety specialist, said 33 children are hurt on a farm each day, and every three days one is killed. Salzwedel presented an extensive outlook on safety and hazards on the farm and provided checklists and resources agritourism operators can use to ensure their farm is safe.
“Farmers, we walk our operations almost every day,” said Salzwedel, who has an agritourism farm in Wisconsin. “We get so used to what we see on our farms on a daily basis that we become blind to the things that are there and to the hazards that are there.”
Hazards were intentionally set up around Heather Hughes’ farm. Workshop participants walked the farm, tested playground equipment and reviewed the parking lot to see if they could spot dangers.
Hughes said she volunteered her farm for the workshop because she thought it could help improve safety at her operation.
“It’s good for me to learn things. If someone else comes in, they may see things that we don’t, so we can fix them,” Hughes said.
Salzwedel said common issues include unsafe pathways, lack of barriers to restricted areas, playgrounds without proper ground cover and inadequate hand-washing stations. She stressed there is a lot of unpredictability when visitors come on a farm.
“Farmers have a right to be worried about liability, but if you properly assess your operation, you can mitigate that risk,” Salzwedel said. Lorraine and Harrell Loupe, of Baton Rouge, inherited land between Ville Platte and Opelousas and are considering turning it into a agritourism destination. “We came here to gather sources of information,” Harrell Loupe said. The Loupes said they would like to use their land as a retreat for women and their daughters interested in hunting and fishing. George Toups, a retired agriculture professor from Thibodaux, wants to open a field trip destination for school children on his land. “I am trying to build my plans, and I hoped this would give me a little more confidence that this is not a non-doable endeavor,” Toups said. He said the workshop showed him all the details he will need to address. “You need to have everything covered. I need to see what if there is ant hill coming up, what are policies for controlling ants or inspecting the citrus orchard for wasp nests,” Toups said. This is the second workshop series funded through a grant from U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Southern Risk Management Education Center. Maria Bampasidou, assistant professor in the LSU AgCenter Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, said the grant presents the opportunity to work on key topics that agritourism operators face. “There are three main components we identified for Louisiana, legal risk, financial risk because people turn to agritourism to increase their income stream or diversify their income, and we wanted people to visit an agritourism operation, so the perfect topic for that was safety and emergency management,” Bampasidou said. A similar workshop was held at the AgCenter Hill Farm Research Station in Homer on March 7.

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