"The proposed changes prohitibt children under the age of 18 from working with animals in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits, and storage bins. They also prohibit youths at grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feedlots, stockyards, livestock exchanges, and livestock auctions.
Children under the age of 16 would be prohibited from operating most power-driven equipment as well as connecting or disconnecting an implement or any part of the machine. All youths would be prohibited from using electronic devices while operating equipment as well."
Now, I agree that revisions probably need to be made. The last revisions were done in 1970 and the world has changed just a bit since then. Here's my major problem: our country depends on agriculture, yet these labor laws leave us no way to draw interest from a younger generation.
In high school, our youth are encouraged to try out careers of interest. Want to go into the medical field? Intern at a hospital for a summer. Want to be a journalist? Work for the local newspaper. Want to try farming? Sorry, you have to be 18.
In our area, non-agriculture jobs for high-schoolers is pretty limited. Without being able to work with animals or at the local elevator, they are limited to the gas station and hardware store or having to commute to work in retail.
Agriculture can be a dangerous place to be. Large machinery + large animals + teenagers can be a recipe for disaster. However, if taught and supervised properly, it can be a very rewarding job for a high school kid. We've employed high school kids on our farm for years, long before I came into the picture. We have never advertised for help, taken applications, or conducted interviews. We have always had kids approach us about milking cows. Some are better at it than others, and some enjoy it more than others, but every single one of them has stuck with it until they graduated. Maybe they learned that dairy farming isn't for them, but they all learn the value of hard work and the time and effort we put in to caring for our animals and producing a quality and safe product.
My question is this: is 18 that much different than 16? So they have 2 more years of growing, but are they as easily taught as a 16 year old? The older they get, the more they know, and the less they have to take instruction from others. It's really not about 2 years as much as it is about common sense. You have to know the kids working for you and what they are capable of. In this day and age everything is about time, but if we slow down just a bit to teach proper safety, to show the proper way to do things, and explain the dangers, maybe we can avoid some of the tragic accidents that happen. Changing the law to 18 is really just about changing statistics. Now the kids getting hurt fall into the adult category and that's not really changing anything.
These laws don't apply to farm owners' children, which is probably where the majority of farm accidents happen. Having 2 young boys, 1 of which would live in the tractor if I let him, safety is very important to us. Our boys have been around cows and machinery since the day they came home from the hospital. That doesn't mean we get lax on safety. Our boys don't go into the cow yard alone. They know to stop and look whenever they hear machinery on the move. Most importantly, we created a safe place for them to play. Our backyard is fenced and they know that they can go play in there whenever they want. We are very lucky. Our oldest child is very cautious and is teaching his less than cautious brother good safety habits. We still try to be vigilant. The moment you aren't is when accidents happen.
I encourage you to comment on the proposed changes. Go to www.regulations.gov and identify your comments as RIN 1235-AA06. You have until November 1st. The whole article is linked at the beginning of my post.
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