Alberta (Rural Roots Canada) – AgSafe Alberta has developed some new educational tools around respirators to make sure farmers can breathe easier in the future.

Jody Wacowich is the Executive Director of AgSafe Alberta.

She says they wanted to increase awareness of respiratory protective equipment and emphasize its longer-term health impacts on the farm.

“We do a lot of things on a day-to-day basis that may not necessarily irritate your lungs today or make you feel sick today, but if you keep doing that day after day, the long-term effects, So starting to see people carrying a tank of oxygen or something like that farmer’s lung comes out,” says Wacowich.

The course gets back to basics.

“Identifying those hazards again, then making sure that they’re aware of how they to be fit because if you’re putting it on and it doesn’t fit, it’s not doing the job that you need it to do and so making sure that we’re learning how to do that.

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Wacowich says the bottom line is that they are encouraging people to understand why it’s important to wear proper respirators when undertaking everyday tasks like shovelling grain bins.

To learn more about this course, go to agsafeab.ca.