Page 24 2025 Fall Farm Outlook Lincoln Daily News Oct 2025 As everyone knows, there are many difficult and even dangerous tasks farmers must do. One such task is shoveling the grain stored in grain bins. Over the years, there have been many accidents in grain bins, and sadly, several have been fatal. Purdue University’s 2024 Summary of injuries and fatalities associated with agricultural confined spaces shows the following statistics. “No fewer than 51 cases involving agricultural confined spaces were documented, including 22 fatal and 29 non-fatal cases.” These incidences represent a 38 percent decrease from 2022, which had 83 cases and a seven percent decrease since 2023. “There were no fewer than 34 grain related entrapments in 2024,” which demonstrates a 25 percent increase from 2023. In his article “Grain-flinging robot goes into granaries so farmers don't have to,” Ben The Grain Weevil Robot Coxworth said, “Going into the bins and manually shoveling the grain is not only a hot and difficult job, it also poses risks such as getting trapped or buried in the grain, getting caught in the auger, and developing lung disease from breathing in grain dust.” These dangers are what inspired Chad and Ben Johnson to create the grain weevil robot. News channel 20’s Agricultural reporter Eliza Petry was at this years' Farm Progress Show in Decatur where she got “an inside look at the industry's latest innovations.” In the article “Ag Reporter Eliza Petry’s top picks of the 2025 Farm Progress Show,” Petry called the grain weevil robot one of her top three favorite finds. Petry interviewed Chad Johnson, the CEO of Grain Weevil, who explained, "A farmer that used to go in there with a shovel, whether to level or to move grain, or throw grain up into the sweeper, they can now do that from the comfort of their truck outside the bin. No boots ever go in the grain and that is our primary mission for what we’re trying to do.” Margie Eckelkamp’s September 26, 2024, AgWeb article, “A Robot To Replace The Need For Farmers To Go Inside the Grain Bin” discussed how the robot works. As Eckelkamp said, “The Grain Weevil powered by JLI Robotics is a mobile robot that scurries across the top of the grain inside of a storage bin performing tasks that no human should ever do.” The robot, which is controlled remotely, is “designed to engage with the grain directly to aerate, move and manage the grain.” Eckelkamp’s article included a May 3, 2021,
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