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September 1, 2025 |

Safety Campaign Highlights Powerline Awareness in Farm Fields

As many of our members turn their attention to the upcoming harvest season, we encourage our agricultural communities to also focus on personal safety and the dangers that may exist during fall operations.

“Safe Fields. Powerful Yields.” is a safety campaign developed for our area agricultural producers, as we often receive an uptick in powerline contacts reported during spring planting and fall harvest. While contact with equipment and a powerline can cause costly outages and repair downtime, our top priority is the safety of equipment operators.

Safe Fields. Powerful Yields. reminds agricultural producers to be aware of powerlines in and around their equipment, fields, and other locations associated with their operations. Our campaign kit includes posters, table tents, and window clings communicating valuable life-saving information on what to do and who to call when seconds count.

• If your equipment comes into contact with an energized or downed power line, contact 9-1-1 immediately and stay inside the equipment until the power is de-energized.
• In the event of smoke or fire, exit the cab by making a solid jump out of the cab (without touching it) and hop away to safety.
• If you make contact with a power line, always assume it is energized. Downed lines can energize the ground around them up to 35 feet away.
• Use a spotter and deploy flags to maintain safe distances from power lines and other electrical equipment when working in the field.
• Maintain a 10-foot clearance around all utility equipment in all directions.
•  Consider the equipment and cargo extensions of your vehicle. Lumber, hay, tree limbs, irrigation pipes, augers, and even bulk materials can also conduct electricity.

Safe Fields. Powerful Yields. is a safety program developed by Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative (NIPCO), an Iowa electric generation and transmission power cooperative headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa, which provides wholesale electric and transmission services to seven electric distribution cooperatives in western Iowa, including ours. If you would like to receive a Safe Fields. Powerful Yields. farm safety awareness kit containing the information detailed in this article in an easy-to-reference poster, table tent, and window cling, visit NIPCO’s safety education page at www.nipco.coop/safety-education and scroll down to the Safe Fields. Powerful Yields. section or call our co-op office.

Planting seeds of safety when working around power lines can be the difference between safe harvests and one interrupted by a costly contact with energized power lines.

 It’s more than a field. It’s a life.