Adopting safety practices on most farm and ranch operations is voluntary, underscoring the importance of working with community members to help producers identify hazards and take steps to reduce the risk of injuries and fatalities. In North Dakota, a large network of trusted community support exists to address the growing concern of agricultural injuries and fatalities.

To address farm and ranch safety prevention efforts, North Dakota State University Extension has partnered with the National Farm Medicine Center to offer the Rural Firefighters Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health (RF-DASH) train-the-trainer program in North Dakota.

The RF-DASH program will be offered in person on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the Killdeer Saddle Club in Killdeer, North Dakota, and Thursday, Dec. 4, at Webster Farms near Penn, North Dakota.

“In North Dakota, we have a fantastic network of Extension agents, rural firefighters, ambulance squads and county emergency managers,” says Angie Johnson, NDSU Extension farm and ranch safety specialist. “These professionals are community members and trusted sources of information that farmers, ranchers and their families listen to when it comes to addressing hazards regarding health and safety on their farm operation.”

RF-DASH training opportunities are open to firefighters, county emergency managers, EMS personnel, law enforcement, safety professionals, Extension agents, technical college instructors, rural insurance agents, farmers, ranchers and other rural community members interested in preventing agricultural injuries and fatalities.

RF-DASH allows these trusted community partners to become leaders in farm and ranch safety prevention education and provide outreach opportunities to their local farmers and ranchers.

The event is free; however, registration is required by Nov. 25. Register at ndsu.ag/safety-killdeer for the Killdeer training and ndsu.ag/safety-penn for the Penn training.

The RF-DASH program was created by the National Farm Medicine Center and the Upper Midwest Agriculture Safety and Health Center with financial in-person training support from the CHS Foundation. The curriculum contains five modules with a hands-on component that focuses on injury prevention and emergency preparedness for farms and ranches:

• Introduction to Agricultural Emergencies
• Preplanning and Mapping Farms with Farm MAPPER
• Farm Hazard Analysis with Saferfarm.org
• Farm First Aid
• Approaching the Farm Community

“RF-DASH really forced me to take off my firefighter hat and focus on identifying farm-related hazards first,” says Cale Woodhouse, past RF-DASH participant and firefighter for the Bismarck Rural Fire Department.

“I had to change my mindset to identify the potential safety hazards on the farm that could possibly end up bringing me here as a firefighter in an emergency response situation,” says Woodhouse. “Instead of focusing on what the rescue process would look like, RF-DASH takes it a step further and asks, ‘How do we prevent this from becoming a rescue situation in the first place?’”

Tim Zehnder, RF-DASH lead trainer, says RF-DASH aims to leverage the bonds between rural fire departments, farmers/ranchers and agricultural community members to reduce rates of agricultural injury and property loss in rural communities.

“Thanks to grant support from the CHS Foundation, we are able to train new leaders in North Dakota and work on getting our first cohort of trainers established in the state — an identified need that North Dakota firefighters and Extension professionals expressed to us,” says Zehnder.

Co-leaders for the December RF-DASH trainings are NDSU Extension agents Kirsten Kukla, Lindsay Overmyer and Hayden Anderson, North Dakota county emergency managers Sarah Duttenhefner and Chris Jaeger, and firefighter Lee Gessner.

Sponsors for the December programs include Stroh Herefords, Dunn County, Cowboy Station, Killdeer Saddle Club, Dunn County Emergency Management, Webster Farms and the Devils Lake Rural Fire Department.

To learn more about the RF-DASH program, contact Angie Johnson at angela.b.johnson@ndsu.edu. For more details about the RF-DASH program, including online resources, visit https://rfdash.org/.

The Killdeer Saddle Club is located at 311 N-22 Bypass in Killdeer, and Webster Farms is located at 5351 73rd Ave. NE near Penn.

NDSU Agriculture Communication – Nov. 13, 2025

Source: Angie Johnson, 701-231-1873, angela.b.johnson@ndsu.edu

Editor: Dominic Erickson, 701-231-5546, dominic.erickson@ndsu.edu