Safety in the Media

WPtoddler
The Western Producer is a Western-Canada farming newspaper with articles on all kinds of things: livestock exhibitions, commodity price forecasts, weather, resistant crop varietals, recipes, and even health and safety on the farm. A recent issue had the image above as a front cover.  Notice anything?

Health and Safety folks will probably notice that this includes a person standing on the top of a step ladder and probably some other more minor contraventions of ‘best practice’.  However, the most glaring thing is the unattended toddler wandering through an active industrial worksite.  No one would feel comfortable with this kid in a steel mill or a construction site, but somehow a barn or Quonset makes it feel ‘homey’ and ‘rustic’ and somehow ok. Unfortunately, farming environments have a huge risk of injury (even compared to steel mills and construction sites!), and kids under 7 are at the highest risk.  Now that you know that, does the picture seem cute or just unsettling?