There are few things that need as much care as farming equipment. This is true for many reasons. Farming is a way of life and is essential to everyone’s continued survival. If farming equipment were to break down, our society would crumble extremely quickly as no one would be able to continue producing crops at the same speed they currently do without the help of the machinery we have created to help the human race keep up with the supply and demand we currently experience.

While dealing with farming equipment, regular maintenance is a must. Naturally, there are things that will go wrong, however, regular care will tend to keep these problems down to a minimum until the age of the vehicle or equipment finally catches up to the user. A common thing that is missed while performing regular maintenance on farm equipment is perhaps one of the easiest things to do. This act is washing the piece of machinery.

Washing your farm equipment is severely important for many reasons. One of the first and most obvious is to get rid of any toxins which may be present on them. This can be anything from animal waste to bacteria and can be nearly harmless or could cause an outbreak of a foodborne illness that could affect anyone in any area across the country or even the world depending on the crop that it has infected. This would, of course, be a horrible situation and no one would want to feel responsible for such an occurrence.

Another reason to wash your farm equipment is because of cross contamination. While this doesn’t seem to be a large problem, cross contamination between fields can certainly be an issue. This contamination can be something simple, like a few seeds from one crop ending up in the field of another. This is a simple and generally harmless type of crossing. There can, however, be more dangerous kinds once chemicals such as pesticides become involved. If pesticides are in one field and not in another for various reasons yet are carried over on farm equipment, it can cause damage to what the “clean” field is growing or attempting to work at.

Making sure to keep a clean tractor or tiller or any other kind of machinery is just as important as any other part of your day. Make sure you clean all the dips and divots in your farm equipment!