Fire preparation

One day there will be a fire in or near your dairy, or at a neighbours. A modern dairy with all the bits and pieces can easily cost more than half a million dollars. What is your fire preparation plan?

It should consist of identifying your potential sources of fire - eg:
1. Machinery room
2. Grain milling and mixing
3. Anywhere there is power - eg office, drafting gate etc.

Have one (or more) fire extinguishers appropriate for the type of fire, in a handy place. Handy means near the potential source of fire, but still accessible.

Make it obvious to anyone who is in the dairy where they are. This could include signs like the following (printed on A4 paper and laminated, stuck to Vat, where only a blind person could miss it):

Add some indicators at the actual place of storage:

While you have the printer and laminator running, you might like to do some signs for other hazards -eg hot water:

nb: This post  is not a substitute for professional advice or common sense. General disclaimers apply.

Technological Innovation - Dairy Research Foundation Symposium 2014

(Apologies to people checking site during conference - A technical glitch meant this post didn't show up straight away)

On June 18 2014, I presented at the Dairy Research Foundation Symposium at Pokolbin on the topic of innovation. There I used some examples, some of which were illustrated with videos.

For your viewing pleasure, in order they were:

Section 1 – History of Innovation and Rate of Change

Atlas Human poweredHelicopter

RynoOne wheel motorbike

Section 2 – Wider tools for innovation globally

3D printing

Bonus video UAVs James Bond

Bonus video Manned Multicopter

Bonus video UAV tennis with a stick

Google Self DrivingCar

Atlas humanoid robot

Big Dog

Wildcat

Baxter

RoboBee

Section 3 – Relating back to Agriculture

Mappad Pro Paddock area and Length measurement  
                    >>>Link direct to Android App
Agrobot

UltraEver Dry

Farmsmarts.cc– Open Source Gate

Please post any comments below. To keep up to date with future posts, you can put your email address in at the bottom of the page in the "Follow by Email" box, and then you get an email when new posts come up. 

To encourage you to contribute your farmer-focussed ideas or innovations, I am making a co-post guarantee. In other words, any suggestions or submissions that are go to the editorial committee of FarmSmarts and get published here will be matched by me with another post from the 20 or so I've drafted.