AEM recently updated its Agricultural Tractor Safety Manual in accordance with the association’s longstanding mission to provide up-to-date and industry-consensus safety materials that encourage safe equipment operation.
New updates include updated pictorials from AEM’s pictorial database, and a complete walkthrough of existing safety content to ensure detailed safety standards are still relevant and in effect. This new revision will be available in April of 2026.
“AEM member companies and their product safety experts play a crucial role in ensuring our manuals and safety materials represent best practices for safe equipment operation,” said AEM Safety Materials Manager Becca Basten. “The Agricultural Tractor Safety Manual puts best practice safety guidance directly into the hands of equipment operators, and it serves as a valuable resource for strengthening safety and training programs.”
The Agricultural Tractor Manual walks equipment operators through safe operation related to performing safety checks, traveling on uneven terrain, loading and unloading the equipment, overturn hazards, implement and attachment operation and other instances where safety education is paramount. This title contains easy-to-follow graphics and clearly stated safety warnings, which help ensure operators understand the equipment's operation, capacity, mechanisms, and maintenance.
AEM’s Safety Materials are consensus documents that are developed, reviewed, and approved by committees empaneled by AEM, and they represent best practices for the industry. The safety materials include more than 50 unique manual titles, including the Ag Tractor Safety Manual, and they extend to additional collateral such as videos, lock out tags, and training kits.
“Many of our members purchase and assign a part number to our safety manuals to ensure that all operators have access to best practice safety guidance,” explained Basten. “Ultimately, doing so benefits both manufacturers and its customers by providing a basis of understanding for safety protocols and adds an added layer of safety education for users in the event that OEM literature is lost at point of equipment resale.”
When its first safety manual was published in 1969, AEM (then known as CIMA) established a foundation for a safety materials program that has grown exponentially over the last 50-plus years.
The intent at that time was for the association to provide end users with a safety manual that complemented its members' OEMs' publications and that represented the industry's best practices for equipment safety. It was an auspicious idea: To provide consensus-based safety documents that were developed, reviewed, and approved by association members who, although they competed in the marketplace, would work together to publish best practices for operating equipment safely.
“AEM offers so many points of engagement with its members, from trade shows to statistics and advocacy,” said Basten. “We can say the same for the Safety Materials program, a service area in which nine out of 10 AEM members who manufacture large non-road equipment make use of safety materials developed by the association and their peers.”
AEM shipped more than 490,000 units worth of safety materials to its members and the public in 2025. While North America was the biggest destination for those materials, AEM shipped its materials into Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, and Germany as well.
For More Information
AEM supports safety awareness year-round by offering an extensive array of safety products, including safety manuals and videos, with major equipment types covering aerial, agriculture, compact/portable, earthmoving, forestry, lifting, road paving, and utility excavation applications.
Click here to learn more about AEM Safety Materials, visit safetymaterials.org, or contact AEM’s Becca Basten at rbasten@aem.org.
