By Andrea Vasquez, NewsNetNebraska

It felt like a heart attack. Tightening chest, restricted breath – it stopped Joe Ondracek in mid-stride.

The Nebraska hog farmer later found out it wasn’t his heart, but his lungs. He had asthma – and he wasn’t alone. Asthma is one of the most common ailments that affect farmers. The years of climbing in grain silos and hauling seed sacks can take a toll.

But it is only one of many illnesses and dangers the state’s 90,000 farmers face because of the nature of their occupation. While technology has helped reduce some of the risks, attitudes and farming practices still often overshadow safety considerations. And in many cases, insurance issues may keep some farmers from seeking help.

“Farming in general is a dangerous occupation because we do so many different things,” said Paul Hay, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln extension educator. “We do (those tasks) sometimes under ideal situations and sometimes under less than ideal situations.”

The most common ailments of farmers are pulmonary problems and musculoskeletal injuries, said Dave Morgan, also an UNL extension educator.

Besides asthma, common problems include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which causes lung inflammation, and Farmer’s Lung, which scars the lungs. Chronic lung disease has been the fourth leading cause of death in Nebraska since 2000, and was responsible for more than 5 percent of deaths in 2007, according to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.

Although Ondracek was predisposed to asthma by heredity and he smoked cigarettes for more than a decade, dirt and dust from the farm also played a big role.

“Anyone who gets exposed to a lot of dust fairly routinely is at increased risk of that,” said Dr. Susanna Von Essen, a professor of pulmonology medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and one of Ondracek’s doctors.

And while people in other professions may only battle asthma sporadically, many farmers have no way around it.

“This is going to follow this farmer and cause him (or her) problems during his entire work life because it’s such a labor-intensive occupation,” said Victoria Lipovsky of AgrAbility, a partnership between Easter Seals Nebraska and UNL Extension that helps farmers with physical disabilities continue farming.

Although they haven’t eliminated risk, technological advances have largely improved farmers’ safety. Whereas dirt used to swirl around combine operators like the dust cloud that follows Peanuts character Pig-Pen, drivers now sit in a heated and air-conditioned bubble while they pace the fields.

Other taxing chores have also been mechanized, helping the aging Nebraska farmer population avoid injuries. In 2007, the average age of Nebraska farm operators was 56, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.

“If you go to the older generation of people that farm, there was more actual manual labor and not as much machinery,” Morgan said.

And if they were aching, many farmers didn’t say so.

Traditionally, the farming culture has accepted many of these physical problems as part of the job. However, an increase in education and safety training is helping to change that.

“Farmers are so hard working and independent that often they think they can just tough it out and perhaps keep doing things the same way,” Lipovsky said. “They always think someone else needs the assistance more than they do.”

Even as farmers learn to be more careful, those extra steps can go out the window when it’s harvest and those precautions feel like the difference between debt and profit.

Much of the agriculture industry is dependent on timing. The temperamental weather and changing season allow fluctuating windows of opportunity for tasks such as planting and harvesting, and the potential risk of income and livelihood is often a higher priority than less immediate health problems.

“Farming is so labor intensive, and when it’s time to plant or harvest, it’s time to plant or harvest,” Lipovsky said. “There’s often time pressure and things have to be done quickly, and perhaps people aren’t thinking, ‘For my own good I need to not jump off the tractor because that affects my joints.”

But most farmers can’t claim workers compensation when injuries and accidents occur. Morgan and Von Essen said many injured or sick farmers often delay seeking help, either out of denial, superseding priorities such as harvest or reluctance to pay the high fees.

“We sometimes don’t get to meet people until they’ve been sick for a while,” Von Essen said. “(Farmers) may have very high insurance or have insurance with a high deductible that makes it hard to get medical care.”

Many farm wives – Hay estimated about 85 percent – have found a way to cope by working off the farm and insuring their family through employee benefits.

For farmers with permanent physical disabilities, such as amputated limbs, AgrAbility may be an option. AgrAbility works with farmers to find technology to help maintain productivity, such as a hydraulic lift for a farmer who can’t pull himself up onto the tractor. AgrAbility has served more than 400 farmers since it began in 1995.

“The farmer or rancher is always the captain of his or her own ship,” Lipovsky said. “However, AgrAbility is there for them to help them navigate the bureaucracy.”

UNL Extension is also pushing to further education and machinery training. Many farmers are exposed to some of these resources through events such as Husker Harvest Days.

And while changing careers is not an option for most farmers, changing the way they work is.

“It’s not a job,” Lipovsky said, “it’s a way of life to farmers and ranchers.”

Tags: farm hazards, farm occupational hazards, farmers, farming