Indiana Farm Fatalities Decrease
Published: Friday, November 6, 2026
Indiana had 17 farm-related fatalities documented in 2025, according to the 2025 Indiana Farm Fatality Summary from Purdue University's Agricultural Safety and Health Program.
The report, one of the oldest monitors of farm-related fatalities in the U.S., tracks deaths reported by the Indiana Department of Labor and other sources, including published news, Extension educator reports and voluntary witness accounts. The report offers an analysis of current fatality and injury trends and compares them to 60 years of Purdue-collected data.
Of all documented fatalities in 2025, 53% of victims were younger than 18 (three cases) or older than 60 (six cases). The average age of all the victims was 46.5 years old, with the youngest recorded victim being 3 years old and the oldest recorded as 79 years old.
Three female farm-related fatalities were reported in 2025, which is an increase from one fatality in 2024. Overall, female farm-fatality rates remain low, with only 18 out of 263 documented fatalities since 2015 (6.8%) being recorded as female.
Tractors remain the most common cause of farm-related fatalities, resulting in five deaths (29% of all fatalities) in 2025. Other causes include skid steer accidents (2), falls (2), tree-related incidents (2) and grain bin suffocation (1).
Approximately one in every nine farms experiences an injury each year that requires emergency medical treatment. The summary reports 37 non-fatal, farm-related injuries in 2025, which is a notable increase from previous years. The Purdue team stresses that most non-fatal farm injuries are not reported, so the actual number is much higher.
The largest category of documented non-fatal injuries, horse-and-buggy collisions, had 13 recorded cases and aligns with previous years' trends of higher injury and fatality rates among Amish/Old Order populations. Injuries also resulted from farm equipment and other vehicles (7), tractors (6) and grain bin and silo entrapment and rescues (6). Recorded victims ages ranged from 2 to 74 years old.
Every county in the state has experienced multiple documented farm fatalities within the last 40 years. In 2025, about one out of every 3,058 farms experienced a farm-related fatality, or about 18 per 100,000 farm workers. Although farm fatality rates have continued to trend lower for several decades, farm workers still have one of the highest fatality rates per number of workers compared to other Indiana occupations.
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