A farm safety program received a $500,000 donation from Canadian National Railway.
The money will go to the Agricultural Injury Control Program to provide farm families and agricultural workers with information about air, food and water contamination and working conditions.
The University of Saskatchewan-based program is managed by the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture. The centre’s goal is to reduce agricultural deaths in Canada by 20 percent within five years.
“We are extremely pleased to have CN come on board. We think it’s an absolutely appropriate fit,” said Maura Gillis-Cipywnyk, the centre’s institutional advancement co-ordinator.
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“(The money) will be used to take the results we are finding in the research we’re doing and translating them into materials that will be provided to producers and other people that are involved in trying to control injuries,” she said.
According to the centre’s research, 1,200 adults and children have died in Canadian farm-related accidents in the past 10 years.
The centre already compiles statistical data and safety information has been distributed in Saskatchewan. A summit will be held in Saskatoon on Dec. 4 to design a national safety program.
CN is a successful company, and with success comes responsibility to reinvest back into the community, said Jim Feeny, the railway’s senior manager of public and government affairs. Safety is a key principle of CN, and there is a lot of agricultural traffic on its network, he added.
“So when the university came to us with this proposal to set up an agricultural injury control program, it seemed a natural fit for CN.”
