It never fails. I’ll be driving home on Route 100, 12, or 16 at near dusk, and I’ll see a Vermont farm tractor chugging down the road toward me. Sometimes there’s a load of balsam or hay. In the spring it’s a manure spreader or logs.
I never get inpatient when I get behind these venerable machines. They are, after all, the sign of people renewing their pact with the working landscape. I remember fondly how my then 98-year old father once confided, “The best day of my life was when I got a tractor.” And I do know what it’s like to sit up high and haul a load of heavy material across the barnyard and over the hilly fields.
Now, however, I drive with my mind on the bar.
Tractors made before 1985 often lack installed roll bars. This is such a hazardous situation that the Lamoille Economic Development Corp has decided to underwrite UVM’s Extension Service Roll Over Protective Structures Program (ROPS) for the next four years in Lamoille County.
A roll bar saves lives and farms. There’s a 70% likelihood that farms where a roll over death occurs will be out of business within one year. We know this from experience right here in northern Vermont. So, the LEDC has committed $140,000 to help Lamoille County farmers purchase and install roll bars on their mechanical workhorses, in order to protect the biggest ag asset there is: farmers.
If this doesn’t underscore the Bounty of the County, I don’t know what does. It’s a firm commitment to the agricultural community and a practical way to lend support.
If you know someone driving a tractor without a roll bar, check out the ROPS project at (877) 767-7748 and then nag them until the roll bar is installed. This program applies to tree farmers and foresters as well. The rebate is 75% for an installed bar/seat-belt, or 70% for a self-installed kit. In special cases, LEDC might approve a higher rebate.
What’s a farmer’s life worth? Everything. And that’s the Bounty of the County.
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