The economic impact of extending OSHA's grain handling standards to currently exempt agricultural worksites

Pamela S O'Conner, Purdue University

Abstract

Historically, approximately 70% of grain-related incidents occur on farms, with the other 30% occurring at commercial facilities. However, most farms that have on-site storage structures are currently exempt from OSHA compliance as a result of OSHA's Agricultural Exemption. This research project attempted to estimate the cost of compliance of a convenient sample of seven representative currently exempt on-farm grain storage facilities with selected OSHA workplace safety and health standards requirements that were deemed most applicable to such grain handling facilities. An assessment tool was developed to gather information on those requirements that were judged as being reasonable for currently exempt on-farm grain storage facilities, and on-site visits were conducted. The level of compliance with the standards requirements was assessed at each on-site storage facility and found to be low. The cost analysis showed that a legislative change of this magnitude, assuming, for instance, an estimated per-farm implementation expenditure of $8,476, would result in a total first-year cost to the nation's 309,000-plus farms with on-farm grain storage of over $2.6 billion (not including the cost of bin retrofit to include adequate anchorage points). The cost of $8,476 includes labor costs of $4,200 and equipment costs of $4,276. Consequently, the findings presented support the belief that the economic impact of compliance would be significant.

Degree

M.S.

Advisors

Field, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Occupational health|Agricultural economics

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