A farm safety bill has been introduced in the Minnesota legislature to create a statewide program offering rebates to farmers to install safety equipment. State Representative Paul Anderson of Starbuck is sponsoring the measure to incentivize farmers to add roll bars and seat belts to their tractors.
He says farmers will be better protected with the addition of the safety equipment to their tractors.
Anderson says the cost of the program is $250,000 a year and they hope to combine state funding along with private donations to pay for it. He says they also want to use left-over state money that was allocated to battle bird flu last year and shift it to the farm safety program.
More than 1700 farm workers nationally have died as a result of tractor accidents since 2003, with roll overs accounting for 40-percent of those fatalities.
