Integration and needs of Iowa high school agricultural educators regarding agricultural safety and health education

Agricultural safety and health education has been an agenda item for various government and non-profit organizations working to reduce the number of agricultural injuries and deaths to young people. Agricultural safety and health education has been recognized as effectively helping to reduce the number of on-farm injuries and deaths, despite facing barriers and challenges. One of the largest challenges agricultural safety and health professionals face is reaching a captivated audience of the desirable age. When audience, learning theories, and teaching methods are considered, one viable route for teaching agricultural safety and health education is in the secondary agricultural education classroom. The purpose of this study was to determine the current practices and attitudes of Iowa high school agricultural educators regarding agricultural safety and health education. The accessible population for this census study consisted of 216 Iowa agriculture teachers. Findings were based on data obtained through a web-based survey from 137 Iowa high school agricultural educators. Non-response error was controlled. Findings from this study indicated that most Iowa high school agriculture teachers are teaching some aspect of agricultural safety and health in their classroom utilizing a variety of teaching tools from various resources. Agricultural safety and health is most commonly taught as part of a larger agricultural science unit, as opposed to being taught as its own unit of study. Iowa agriculture teachers recognized strengths, such as the quality of materials, and weaknesses, including the need for professional development, to agricultural safety and health education and identified limitations they face in teaching the topic. Ultimately, the results of this study brought greater understanding of Iowa high school agriculture teachers\u27 practices in agricultural safety and health education and their attitudes towards agricultural safety and health education. Agricultural safety and health professionals can benefit from addressing the findings and the recommendations of this study in the development of agricultural safety and health education materials

Swine industry stakeholders' perception on the use of water-based foam as an emergency mass depopulation method.

The U.S. pork supply chain is vulnerable to various internal and external threats and in need of prompt, comprehensive response plans. Under urgent circumstances, for example in the case of foreign disease incursions, swine farms will have to perform on-farm animal depopulation to prevent disease spread. Several animal depopulation methods including water-based foam (WBF) have been proposed and are under evaluation for feasibility in the field. However, the psychological/emotional impacts of applying depopulation methods for personnel managing and carrying on the tasks are not currently well understood. Thus, this study aimed to investigate WBF as an alternative for depopulation compared to existing methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Swine industry stakeholders were invited to voluntarily observe a WBF depopulation trial and to provide their self-reported perspectives before and after the observation. A survey was designed to explore key areas on expected and perceived method effectiveness, efficiency, and animal welfare considerations, as well as to evaluate short-term post-observation psychological impacts. Among 42 recruited stakeholders, 31.0% (13/42) were educators/researchers followed by animal health officials (26.2%, 11/42) and veterinarians (23.8%, 10/42), with an average of 11.7 ± 12.6 (n = 39) years of work experience. After the trial, respondents' positive perception of WBF depopulation increased specifically regarding the animal loading process being less stressful than restrained in-barn depopulation options (P = 0.003) and by the observation of fewer swine escape attempts and vocalizations than expected (P < 0.001). Respondents' positive perception of WBF also increased regarding to the time required to fill the trailer with foam, to stop hearing animal vocalization, and stop hearing animal movement, as the observed trial times were faster than their pre-observation estimates (P < 0.001). Additionally, 79.5% (31/39) of respondents agreed that the rapid destruction of animal populations had priority over animal welfare under urgent scenarios. Minor post-traumatic stress disorder-like (PTSD-like) symptoms from the observed trials were reported (26.7%, 4/15 respondents) one month after the observation. This study showed that the WBF depopulation process was perceived positively by swine stakeholders and may have limited short-term psychological impacts on personnel involved in animal depopulation