Hundreds of ranchers put their lives on the line every day to feed a world that often seems to be against them. From January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2019, alone, more than 60,000 people were treated in emergency departments across the United States for agricultural-related injuries. In an industry that has turned a blind eye to safety for far too long, cattle equipment manufacturer, Arrowquip, decided enough is enough and revealed its new promise to ranchers that puts safety above all else.
If you are injured with Arrowquip equipment, they will give you your money back. No questions asked, and ranchers will get to keep their equipment. In the cattle management industry, the difference between proper, safe functioning equipment is also the difference between getting a severe injury or ending up hospitalized and unable to work.
“The cattle management industry has accepted that injuries and people being hurt are normal. One injury or one death as a result of cattle management is too many, and we’re here to fix that,” said Arrowquip CEO Andrew Firth. “We’re dealing with life and death. In our industry, everyone has a story of being injured working cattle and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
For years, ranchers have settled on cattle equipment and handling practices that are “good enough” because it is the way they’ve been doing it for years, and it gets the job done. But that just doesn’t cut it anymore. “We don’t want to react to what has happened. We want to predict everything that could happen and mitigate that to the best of our ability,” said Langrell.
Beginning with a review of all cattle equipment currently on the market, Arrowquip will continue to review all consumer feedback and take it into sincere consideration.
“We hope this causes the customer to ask questions of their other suppliers, ask questions of other people that are building cattle management products to help them improve, and force the industry to change,” said Firth. “Our role is to ensure our customers are front and center and that we are making decisions that matter to them and are in communication with them to make sure that the problems that are in the industry are being solved,” said Langrell. “If there is a problem that has not been solved, we aim to solve it.”
As cattle equipment manufacturers, it is past time that safety is brought from the sideline to its rightful place at the forefront of the industry.
“We firmly believe that safety is number one in our industry. It has to be,” said Firth. “We hope that other market leaders in the industry follow us and create similar promises and similar commitments to really make a difference.”
