Prioritizing on-farm safety for the next generation

Apr 15, 2025

A fun and interactive program is available to help farm families start those important conversations about safety.

The BASF Safety Scouts program provides 2,000 BASF Safety Scout and BASF Safety Captain kits each year at no cost to farm families across Canada. The kits are designed to encourage farm children to take on the role of safety ambassador on their farm.

Leta LaRush, Vice President, Business Management at BASF Agricultural Solutions Canada said the program is a key pillar of how BASF supports the communities where their customers live, work, and play.

“Our children’s safety must always come first on the farm, and it is particularly important we keep safety top of mind during busy seasons,” LaRush said. “Initiatives like this provide valuable resources that help farm families and communities invest in on-farm safety. By prioritizing these programs, we can work together to shape a safer and brighter tomorrow for Canadian agriculture.”

The free activity kits can help farm families introduce children to the foundations of farm safety in a fun and engaging way. Available to order online while supplies last, BASF Safety Scout (ages three to six) and BASF Safety Captain (ages seven and up) kits include a child-sized safety vest and activity sheets that spark important conversations about on-farm safety.

BASF is partnering with Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA) on the delivery of these program. CASA Executive Director Sandra Miller said talking about safety is the first step.

“The BASF Safety Scouts program helps farm families start those important conversations about safety, giving them the tools and resources to take proactive steps and build a culture of safety on the farm,” Miller said.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators