2020 Pennsylvania Farm Fatal Injury Summary

This report summarizes Pennsylvania's 2020 farm fatality data. We identified 39 farm and agricultural fatalities in Pennsylvania in 2020 by using two sources of data.  This is an increase in fatalities compared to previous years.

Table 1 provides summary statistics by demographics of the 2020 fatality cases. Ten of the cases (25.6%) belong to youth and children 19 years and lower. This is slightly higher than the 2015-2019 average of 21.5% of victims being 19 or younger. As is typically the case, the majority of victims were male (for those with known gender). 

Table 1. Demographics of the victims

We used two sources of data for this report:  farm-related death certificates from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and media reports of farm-related fatalities.  These databases were cross-referenced and cleaned of duplicates and non-farm incidents. 

Farm and Agricultural Injury Coding

The Farm and Agricultural Injury Classification (FAIC) Code is a classification scheme used to separate out incidents not directly related to the work of production agriculture. FAIC codes allow identification of farm production work cases as well as unique situational exposures in production agriculture (e.g., non-workers in work environments). Table 2 provides summary statistics for FAIC classifications of Pennsylvania’s 2020 fatalities. Sixteen of the 39 fatality cases (~41%) happened in an agricultural occupation position with 15 injuries classified as FAIC-1 Farm Production Work. Seven of the fatalities were classified FAIC-9, Farm/Ranch Hazard Exposure: Roadways.

Table 2. Fatalities by Farm and Agricultural Injury Code (FAIC)

Fatalities by Injury Source

Fatality reports since 2000 have been used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) to characterize primary and secondary sources of injury. The source of injury or illness identifies the object, bodily motion, or exposure which directly produced or inflicted the previously identified injury or illness. For example, if the worker was operating a farm tractor when it rolled over on the victim, the source would be the farm tractor.

We utilized the OIICS system to categorize each fatality in a way that is comparable across years and between states. Table 3 categorizes the 33 fatal incidents (that had identifiable sources) by those sources and provides a brief description for each.

Table 3. Fatalities by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Injury and Illness Classification system (OIICS)

Highway Vehicles, Motorized

Off-Road and Industrial Vehicles – Powered

Inhalation of Harmful Substance

Agricultural and Garden Machinery

Animals

Plants, Trees, Vegetation - Not Processed

Fall, Slip, & Trip

Firearms

Hanging

Summary

The year 2020 was obviously an anomaly due to the pandemic.  Pennsylvania’s farm and ag-related communities were impacted in many ways; one of those ways seems to be an increased number of fatal incidents.  But these results do not paint a clear picture as to how exactly the pandemic impacted Pennsylvania farm fatalities.  We know, for example, there were additional pressures on the food-related supply chain as consumer demands shifted and producers suffered from labor shortages.  This type of pressure may have caused farms to change their operations in ways that increased exposure to hazards.   More in-depth research will be needed to fully understand the safety-related causes and effects that occurred in 2020.

A total of 39 farm and agricultural-related fatalities were recorded in Pennsylvania in 2020. This is a significant increase in fatalities from the previous 5-year average (2015-2019 avg = 27.4/yr). Consistent with the previous 5-year Pennsylvania farm fatality report, males are much more likely to be fatally injured than are females.  The Anabaptist community continues to suffer from relatively high fatality rates.

Vehicles were again a leading source of fatalities in 2020, accounting for 14 of the 39 fatalities in this period. Only three of the vehicle fatalities occurred with highway vehicles, while the majority of vehicle fatalities continued to occur with industrial vehicles or powered off-road vehicles. Farm tractors and ATV’s were especially hazardous.

We would note that suicides remain an unfortunate source of fatalities for farmers in Pennsylvania.  We identified eight suicides in 2020 that appeared to occur on a farm.  Also of note is the continued high number of youth who are fatally injured on farms.

We recommend that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and other ag-industry stakeholders put greater emphasis on reducing injuries and fatalities.