ERIN, N.Y. — Agri-Services Agency (ASA) Loss Control Manager, Sean Vallely, has been with the company for 3 years, his background is in insurance, primarily as a safety specialist with large construction companies in the Northeast focusing on safety management and training. “I made the switch to working with agribusinesses about 8 years ago,” said Vallely. “I grew up in a rural area, with a dairy farmer grandfather and uncle, when you visited you milked cows and baled hay. I farm a little now, we have horses and a few other animals. It’s been a smooth transition from construction to agribusinesses. Agriculture isn’t formalized as some industries as far as safety goes, and it makes sense since farming is a very private and personal operation. But the industry has gotten bigger, it’s not just family on a farm anymore. The industry is changing and will continue to change with safety becoming more important, and that’s what we’re here for.”
Currently based out of Erin, NY, Vallely holds a B.S. Degree in Agricultural Engineering from Cornell University. “It was useful in construction, as it’s a type of a mechanical/civil engineering degree,” said Vallely. “But it lines up well with what I’m doing now for ASA. In the construction industry I did a lot of underwriting training for new hires. Now, as a loss control manager, I’m mentoring new risk managers, training has always been a big part of what I do.”
For Vallely, a major part of his job is helping farms manage their loss ratio. “When you’re writing workers comp insurance, whatever we can do to reduce accidents is essential. It keeps the loss ratio down which is mutually beneficial for the farm and ASA. It protects our insured and keeps ASA profitable. By doing hazard analysis on the farm, just walking through and finding things that need to be corrected, can be a huge help. “It never hurts to have a fresh set of eyes on the farm to see any issues there and do additional training as they request. It’s important that we teach farmers that attention to safety will help control the cost of workers compensation. A good safety culture can pay dividends on a worker’s compensation premium. A farm safety program can help make a farm more productive and profitable.
ASA provides a safe farm program for its members. “About 18 months ago we started offering dairy worker safety training to member farms,” said Vallely. “We utilize iPads to bring a mobile learning platform to the farms, and our trainers are fluent in Spanish and well experienced in the industry. So far, we’ve trained over 1,500 farm employees. Having a bilingual instructor has been really important. The Hispanic workforce is throughout the country, and you need to speak the language to teach the workforce properly. Over the years, there has been a shift in the workforce, many employees are new to a farm, so safety training has become even more important. As the program has grown, farmers see the value and employees appreciate the training, and it’s very rewarding to see the value that the employees recognize in the training. When you provide education and explain the behavior of cows, how they see, natural herd instincts and more, it gives everyone a better understanding of the best way to interact with cows and how to handle them. “You can train someone to do anything, but when you educate them on why they have to do it a certain way, that’s when it takes hold and sinks in.”
While this year’s Agricultural Safety and Health Council of America (ASHCA) Agricultural Safety Summit has been postponed due to concerns over the outbreak of Covid-19, the event is something that Vallely finds truly valuable. “The information that is presented there, it’s all outstanding. Our industry is a real focus now, driven by the consumers that want to see positive changes for workers welfare and safety. It’s part of the evolution of consumer demands. They started with food safety and quality, then animal safety, then environmental, and now the evolution has brought the focus to worker safety. It’s kind of sad that worker safety came last for the public, but it has always been a top priority for ASA. Farmers and their families all work on the farm and their employees are almost like family members. When you work long hours together every day, there’s a bond, workers become more than employees, they’re an integral part of the farm.” At ASHCA, we work to bring research and new issues into the mainstream. ASA has benefited from this through the safety work that we do. The Dairy Worker Safety trainings we do, came from the work that Dr. Robert Hagevoort of New Mexico State University has done, though there are a lot of great colleges and organizations that are working on safety on the farm.
Once the Summit is rescheduled, Vallely will be taking part in a round table event on workers comp 101, and how to go about selling safety. “I’ve done this for 30 years,” said Vallely. “It’s not glamorous work. You’re not selling something that gets shown off on the mantle in the living room. But what you do can give real peace of mind to a farmer when something does go wrong. I’ll be answering general questions on workers comp. The training we do that decreases workers comp premiums means that a dollar saved on workers comp can save much more than that in losses. Workers’ comp costs can vary quite a bit, you can be paying twenty percent less than your neighbor or sixty percent more. There’s a huge cost savings there if you manage safety on your farm.”
— Agri-Services Agency