Against The Grain: Dr. Salah Issa On Innovating Ag Safety
SASHA ZVENIGORODSKY
URBANA, ILLINOIS
Dr. Salah Issa’s career in agricultural safety began in an unexpected way. Starting out at a graduate program in Ecological Sciences and Engineering at Purdue University as a self-described “city kid”, he was unaware that agricultural engineering was even a career option. It wasn’t until he took a course in agrosecurity that the world of agriculture, and its hazards, opened up to him.
“My undergraduate degree was in biochemistry, and I originally thought I would be working in a lab,” he says. “Before I arrived at Purdue in 2009, I had no real grasp of agricultural engineering or the amount of research that goes into agriculture. But the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. Along the way, I realized I didn’t want to spend my career in a biochemical lab; I preferred working with people.”
This period marked the beginning of Issa’s career in ag safety, a field he has now spent over a decade advancing, focusing his research and extension work on injury prevention and hazard reduction in agriculture with the help of new technologies.
Grain bins were Salah’s first focus. “The professor of my agrosecurity class had a research slot open, so the very next semester I started working with him. He had collected over a thousand cases of grain entrapments at local farms, which quickly became my main project.”
Grain entrapments occur when a person becomes partially or fully submerged in stored grain within a bin or silo. Much like quicksand, entrapped individuals can be quickly pulled down into the bin, restricting their movement and breathing.
Salah’s Ph.D. was built as a collection of investigative studies on these cases, combining case analysis with simulation models to explore unanswered questions around grain entrapment.
“At the time when I started publishing my work, there was limited understanding of grain entrapment beyond that it could kill you,” he says. “I was trying to solve how it could kill you.”
For four years, Salah collected and analyzed grain entrapment cases, authoring reports on them. He was quick to realize that accepted safety practices in agriculture were under-researched.
“There were reports saying the easiest solution was to just pull the victim straight out of the grain, but I wondered: couldn’t that injure their spine?”
Such questions he often had to answer on his own. “I ended up testing that by building an experimental model where I measured the force it took to pull apart a lamb spine, which turned out to be comparable to the force needed to pull a person out of grain.”
“Using machine learning, I’ve been able to analyze weather data and predict grain entrapment risks with about 80% accuracy. The hope is that one day there is an algorithm that can indicate when there is a risk for entrapment, prompting me to do a training that might save a life.”
Salah’s work extended beyond just research alone, evolving into hands-on outreach efforts as he learned more from his findings.
“Analyzing those cases gave me a deeper appreciation for grain bin safety, which led me to participate in training sessions for fire departments and provide them with my insights,” he explains. “As I collected data, I realized that about a quarter of the cases involved children and young adults under 21, so we began going to high schools to talk about the dangers of grain bins as well.”
Over the years, Salah has witnessed firsthand how the world of agricultural safety has shifted in response to targeted research and outreach such as his own.
“When I started my Ph.D., there was real debate over whether you should just pull a victim straight out of grain,” he reflects. “There’s now a clear consensus on safer rescue methods.”
Today, Salah splits his time between Extension and research within the Agricultural Engineering department at Illinois, where he works on the Agricultural Safety and Health Surveillance program.
There, his work has expanded beyond grain bins to a variety of topics within the realm of agricultural safety, leveraging new technologies to improve training and prevent injuries in the field.
“One thing I’ve been fascinated with is AI, and I’m still working on implementing it in my work,” he says. “Using machine learning, I’ve been able to analyze weather data and predict grain entrapment risks with about 80% accuracy. It’s not quite there yet, but the hope is that one day there is an algorithm that can indicate when there is a risk for entrapment, prompting me to do a training that might save a life.”
Prevention is a cornerstone of Issa’s work. “We’ve also developed a VR training tool,” he adds. “You wear a headset, see a truck in front of you, and practice pre-trip inspections. We’re currently testing it with Parkland College, and it’s showing promising results. Eventually, we hope to expand this training to other equipment and machinery.”
In a world where agricultural technologies revolve around the optimization and efficiency of farming, Salah has turned his attention to the flip-side of these improvements and the risks they can introduce to workers.
“There’s a machine, basically a flat cart, that follows workers while they harvest,” he says. “They fill it up, press a button, and it goes back to be emptied. Normally, growers would walk back and forth, but with this machine they spend almost all their time bent over in a position that isn’t ergonomically safe. For a farmer that wants a fast harvest, there is a benefit, but for the worker, there’s a safety trade-off,” he says. “I haven’t seen anybody measure that added risk.”
Uncovering risks like these, Issa believes, is only possible when people feel comfortable sharing their experiences. Trust is important in his work, particularly in a field where people may be hesitant to share information about workplace incidents or near-misses.
“There are all these unintended consequences in ag tech that we need to anticipate, so anecdotal reports are critical. I don’t ask for names or specifics. What’s important is bringing attention to something that could happen,” he says.
Instead of policing safety, Salah works to create spaces where growers and industry partners feel comfortable contributing ideas and solutions to common workplace issues.
“I try to make sure industry partners have prime roles in conferences and meetings. If a grower has an idea, I’ll jump at it,” he says.
“I’m a firm believer that when it comes to safety, It’s not a one-size-fits-all. It’s really about encouraging people to adopt the solutions that will help increase safety within their own operations.” ∆
SASHA ZVENIGORODSKY
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS