While grain handling remains a cornerstone of the agricultural industry, it nonetheless comes with its fair share of hazards. Recognizing the need for heightened safety awareness, the 2025 Stand Up 4 Grain Safety Week recently took place from March 24 to 28.
This annual event, a collaborative effort by OSHA’s Alliance Program, The Grain Handling Safety Council, The Grain Elevator and Processing Society, and The National Grain and Feed Association, aims to prevent injuries and save lives in the grain industry.
OSHA’s Alliance Program, working alongside state workplace safety officials and industry leaders, helped contribute to a 25.7% reduction in fatal grain entrapments from 2022 to 2023. However, despite these efforts, half of the reported grain entanglements in 2024 resulted in fatalities.
As tragic as these events are, there’s a much more common threat workers face on a daily basis: hearing loss. Prolonged exposure to high noise levels in grain handling facilities can lead to permanent hearing loss, increased stress, and reduced communication, putting your team’s safety and well-being at risk.
Here, we’ll take a look at some of insights from the 2025 Stand Up 4 Grain Safety week, highlight the importance of hearing conservation, and how you can protect workers involved in grain handling.
Let’s break it down.
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A Collaborative Effort for Enhanced Safety
The 2025 Stand Up 4 Grain Safety Week kicked off at Iowa State University in Ames. It marked a significant milestone as the first university-owned feed mill to host the event. This important gathering brought together industry leaders, safety professionals, and workers to focus on crucial aspects of grain handling safety.
The opening event highlighted worksite housekeeping, hearing conservation, preventing struck-by incidents, and railway safety.
Key Focus Areas from the 2025 Stand Up 4 Grain Safety Week
Through the course of the week-long event, several important topics were addressed to improve safety in grain handling operations:
- Worksite Housekeeping: Ensuring a clean and properly organized work environment is important to preventing workplace accidents. Efficient housekeeping minimizes the risk of slips, trips, and falls, and reduces the accumulation of combustible dust, which can cause explosions.
- Hearing Conservation: Exposure to excessive noise in grain handling facilities can lead to permanent hearing loss. Implementing hearing conservation programs can help to protect workers’ hearing and overall well-being at work.
- Preventing Struck-By Incidents: Workers in grain facilities remain at risk of being struck by moving or falling objects. An emphasis on safety protocols and awareness can greatly reduce these occurrences.
- Railway Safety: Many grain handling facilities make use of railways for transportation. For these workplaces, maintaining proper training and safety measures around railway operations is crucial in preventing accidents.
– See OSHA’s Grain Handling Safety Standards.
– See OSHA’s Agriculture Safety Resources.
The Importance of Hearing Safety in the Workplace
Protecting your staff’s hearing is an important part of occupational safety, especially in industries with high noise levels. OSHA states that employers must implement a hearing conservation program when noise exposure reaches or exceeds 85 decibels averaged over an 8-hour workday.
These programs help prevent initial occupational hearing loss, as well as preserving remaining hearing. They also equip workers with the knowledge and devices necessary to protect themselves from workplace hazards.
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Strategies to Prioritize Workplace Hearing Safety
To effectively prioritize hearing safety in the workplace, consider the following approaches:
- Conduct Regular Noise Assessments: Regularly monitor noise levels in your workplace to identify areas where exposure may exceed the stipulated safe limits. This allows for proactive implementation of control measures.
- Implement Engineering Controls: Whenever possible, reduce noise at the source through engineering solutions. This might include installing quieter machinery, using noise-dampening materials, and proper maintenance of equipment (to minimize noise generation).
- Provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): When engineering controls just aren’t feasible or sufficient, you’ll need to provide workers with appropriate hearing protection devices like earplugs or earmuffs. Ensure that these devices properly fit and are effective for the specific noise levels encountered in the workplace.
- Educate and Train Employees: Provide training programs that educate workers on the risks of noise exposure, the benefits of hearing protection, and the correct use and maintenance of PPE for hearing protection.
- Schedule Regular Hearing Tests: Conduct baseline and annual audiometric testing to monitor employees’ hearing over time. This helps with early detection of hearing loss, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of your hearing conservation program.
- Encourage Reporting and Feedback: Create an environment where employees feel safe to report issues related to noise exposure and hearing protection. And, of course, use this feedback to continuously improve safety measures.
Related: Exploring 10 PPE Items for Your Workplace Hearing Protection Program
Bringing It Together
The 2025 Stand Up 4 Grain Safety Week highlighted the collective commitment to enhancing safety in the grain handling industry. By focusing on important areas such as worksite housekeeping, struck-by incident prevention, railway safety, and hearing conservation, the initiative aims to minimize workplace injuries and deaths.
Prioritizing hearing conservation through comprehensive programs and proactive measures is vital to protect workers’ health and maintain a productive workplace.
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In most cases, OSHA requires medical surveillance testing, and at no cost to employees.
Worksite Medical makes that program easier with mobile medical testing.
We conduct silica exam physicals, on-site respirator fit tests (including N95 masks), audiometric exams, as well as pulmonary function tests and heavy metal lab work, and much more, right on your job site. We also keep accurate, easy-to-access medical records for your convenience. You’ll keep your employees at work, and stay ahead of OSHA inspections.
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