Logging with an injury or chronic health condition? Use LogAbility to work better with less physical stress.

Logging, and in particular conventional logging, has long been recognized as one of the most dangerous occupations. Working with powerful equipment, felling trees, often on uneven terrain and in challenging weather conditions, all add up to a tremendous potential for accidents. Add to that the potential for chronic conditions due to the constant stresses and strains of the job, and the potential for some sort of injury is daunting. 

Addressing these challenges is the mission of Maine LogAbility. We strive to help reduce accidents and injuries, and to assist loggers who have chronic conditions or physical challenges to keep working in the field. We are a no-cost program serving the entire state. 

We work with individual loggers to address chronic injuries such as shoulder or back injuries, or conditions such as arthritis or age-related limitations. We address anything as commonplace as chronic back pain to injuries as profound as amputations. Pairing health care workers/movement educators and agriculture specialists, LogAbility will come to your logging site to evaluate the logger and their equipment to determine if there are adaptive devices or techniques that would enable a logger to do their job more efficiently, safely, and comfortably. Although LogAbility does not have funding to purchase equipment for clients, we can work with other funders to potentially defray equipment costs or, in some cases, cover costs completely. 

Keep in mind that our recommendations are just that–you are in no way not obligated to follow them. We are not an agency that issues mandates of any kind to either businesses or individual workers. LogAbility staff are no-cost consultants whose advice you are free to use or ignore. Any contact or site visits we have with you are entirely private and confidential. 

Logability also partners with agencies and employers who wish to provide safety and prevention workshops to loggers and truckers. Some of our past workshops include falls prevention and safety, shoulder injuries, and ergonomics. An example of these are the two spring training sessions we did this year through CLP.

Maine LogAbility operates under the umbrella of Maine AgrAbility, a USDA grant program that the University of Maine has been a recipient of since 2010.  Our program is in the vanguard of AgrAbility innovation and development. We were the first AgrAbility program to expand from traditional commercial farming to include aquaculture, fishing, and logging. Other states have since followed our lead, providing assistance and education to previously unserved loggers and fishermen. Maine has the only active ArgAbility program in New England, and we are able to provide outreach to loggers in other New England states. In addition, we have written articles for trade journals and attended logging conferences like the Northeastern Forest Products Equipment Expo to get our information out.

The CLP has given us the opportunity to provide articles in this newsletter on health related topics specific for loggers, and we look forward to sending you the most updated information to keep you safe and healthy and productive in your logging career.

For information about our services, visit our website at  https://extension.umaine.edu/agrability/logging-resources/. You will also find posted articles, resources, and links to other agencies. Or, you can also reach out to us directly by contacting our coordinator, Bella Russo, for more information at 207-944-1533.

We look forward to hearing from you!

This material is based on work supported through a grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, under USDA NIFA grant number 2022-41590-38120