Top 10 OSHA citations for animal feed and grain processing facilities

Facilities that handle grain must deal with a variety of hazards. The ones that get the most attention are entrapments, engulfments, dust explosions and fires.

All of these are serious, but the hazards responsible for the most injuries, citations and even fatalities do not get the same level of media exposure.

Each year the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) releases its top citations. The 2022 list features hazards that have the potential to be found at any grain handling and processing facility. This Infographic will hopefully be a reminder to feed manufacturing, grain handling and grain processing facilities, both what OSHA is citing and fining facilities for, but also some of the areas of a mill where safety procedures might need to be retrained or reinforced.

Fall protection takes the 1st and 7th spots on the list for failure to provide workers with protection and to properly train employees on how to recognize fall hazards and prevent them properly. Hazzard Communication should be a program every facility has in place because grain dust is considered a hazardous chemical. It also leads nicely into numbers four and nine on OSHA's list, Respiratory Protection and Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment. Having properly maintained gear and training employees on how to use it will protect facilities from this citation.

Ladders, Scaffolding, and Powered Industrial Trucks are not hazards every facility will have to deal with. But if they are used on-site, OSHA cites facilities' for not having proper fall protection as their top risk, along with improper training of employees using this equipment.

Avoiding number 6, Control Of Hazardous Energy is one of the most important for feed manufacturing, grain handling and grain processing facilities. A good lock-out-tag-out is crucial to keeping employees safe. With all the moving equipment in feed and grain facilities, number 10, Machine Guarding has outsized importance.

Having documented safety programs and processes in place and keeping proof of employee training is key to avoiding citations during an OSHA inspection. Part of most OSHA Standard Number that is in this Top 10 list is the requirement to train employees on the hazards they will be facing and to keep documents proving that they've been trained and procedures to address hazards are in place.

To download the entire infographic, click here.

— Steven Kilger