IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (I-CASH) will be hosting the 2026 Midwest Rural Agricultural Safety and Health Conference (MRASH) at the Hotel Millwright in Amana, Iowa, Nov. 12-13, with around 100 industry experts from across the country in attendance, officials said.

Each year, The University of Iowa’s I-CASH, along with the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health – also housed at the university – and other partners, present the conference, which brings together safety and health researchers and professionals, health care providers, farmers and rural advocates, all committed to building a safer and healthier agriculture, officials added.

“The MRASH Conference began as a method to bring agricultural safety and health researchers and farmers together,” Rich Gassman, I-CASH director, told Farm World. “It was designed to help disseminate key safety and health information to our rural populations.” He said the theme this year celebrates the World Health Organization’s International Year of the Woman Farmer: “We felt that was a perfect theme for us to use for the 2026 MRASH Conference.”

I-CASH officials said on their website about the conference: “While women have played many roles on the farm over the years, they remain caretakers of the safety and health of their families and businesses, all while facing their own specific exposures, risks and challenges. Our general sessions will explore some of those changes and look at emerging needs and research.”

Officials said attendees can expect general sessions exploring emerging needs and research, as well as breakout sessions and poster presentations covering a wide range of topics, and a pre-conference workshop on respirator fit testing, which verifies that a tight-fitting respirator forms a proper seal against the face to block hazardous, airborne particles.

The breakout sessions will include topics such as dementia, grain bin safety, hearing loss, mental health, new teaching tools and tick-borne diseases. In addition, the conference includes opportunities for networking and sharing research and outreach efforts, officials added.

The keynote session, entitled, Women in Agriculture: Cultivating Leaders, Strengthening Communities, Inspiring Action, will feature Florence Becot, Ph.D., Penn State University Nationwide Insurance Early Career professor, and agricultural safety and health program lead.

During the conference, I-CASH will also be screening the first episode of the series “Perfect Sundays,” a 2026 six-episode fictional, limited television series that captures the journey of the Weeks family, who digs their way out of economic ruin and emotional paralysis in the wake of the Pennsylvania dairy farm’s patriarch Ed Weeks’ death by suicide.

“It is important to have agricultural producers attend this conference,” Gassman said. “It gives them an opportunity to meet with safety and health practitioners and gain important information. The conference will help them develop the tools to help make their farms and ranches safer places to work and live.”

For more information about the conference, visit: icash.public-health.uiowa.edu.