With the average age of the American farmer now over 50 years old according to the Environmental Protection Agency and the family farm on visible life support, the Obama Administration has moved to put the ailing patient out of his misery with a well aimed bullet right between the eyes.
What better way to ensure the complete and utter death of the family farm in just a few short years than to prohibit the children of farm owning parents from working the land and learning the business alongside Mom and Dad?
A proposed new rule from the Obama Administration would ban children under 18 from any farm work which involves the “storing, marketing, and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
A Labor Department press release read that “Prohibited places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”
In addition, under this proposed rule, independent groups like 4-H would no longer be allowed to teach and certify safety training to children replacing such locally based youth agricultural programs with a 90 hour federal government training course.
Let’s think about this for a moment.
This rule forbids just about every farm chore I can think of right down to coloring a flyer with paper and crayons to decorate the farm’s booth at the local Farmer’s Market.
So, what are farm kids supposed to do then if they can’t do much of anything around the farm until they are 18 which includes running a small business of their own on the farm to generate some income for college?
I guess they can always play video games or watch TV instead. Surely there’s a video game out there where children can simulate farm chores without ever leaving the living room couch!
A generation of farm kids raised on sloth instead of a hard work ethic will undoubtedly ensure that few family farms will make it into the next generation’s hands.
With children not able to be mentored by their parents on the farm nor by other local agricultural leaders in their community via 4-H or FFA, loss of interest in agriculture by the next generation of family farmers is virtually guaranteed.
Wait a minute!
Did you hear something?
Oh, nevermind. It’s just the cha-ching of campaign contributions from Monsanto.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source:Â Rural Kids, Parents Angry About Labor Department Rule Banning Farm Chores
This is a forum for the anti-government and anti-Obama, not farming. It sickens me. Assumption that the president is getting money from Monsanto and advocates video games instead. Where’s the solution?
Starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto, Dupont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they’ll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration.
President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbying, research, and philanthropic arms.
Michael Taylor, former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods.
Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Islam Siddiqui, Vice President of the Monsanto and Dupont-funded pesticide-promoting lobbying group, CropLife, is now the Agriculture Negotiator for the US Trade Representative.
Rajiv Shah, former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a frequent Monsanto partner), served as Obama’s USDA Under Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case, has been nominated to the Supreme Court.
Now, Ramona Romero, corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
DuPont’s lengthy record of lies, crimes and misdeeds are well known, and the company’s efforts to deceive the public and cover-up risks of its products continue to this day.
I happened on to this discussion and just glanced down over these multitude of comments, but it sure saddens me–all this venom spewed about President Obama! Obama has done a lot for our country and if he didn’t have so many people in congress determined to make him fail, he could have done a lot more.
I could not leave this site without standing up for a great man who has had to work against great odds in order to do his job! I AM voting for Obama and I hope you all get your facts straight and open your minds to the good he has done.
Video game of farming. Yup there is one. ON FB where big bro Gov can watch them.
Without fully reading all comments here and I’m NOT advocating Obama in any way, but doesnt’ this just concern those that are being paid to work as a job at a farm? I have a 14 year old that goes to work, but can only do certain things and work only so many hours. There is alist of jobs he is not allowed to do because of his age. I am thinking this whole thing just falls under this list, and does not concern the family farm where a family is working it together. I could be wrong since I haven’t fact checked myself.
It’s all about control. The more they take out of individual’s hands the less the individual can do to determine his or her own life. I remember in the 70’s and 80’s agricultural corporations tried to befriend the family farmers by promising products that would give higher yields, specifically the development of Bovine Stimulating Hormone, etc.. But what it really has done, and was intended to do was to make it easier for big corporate farms to take over so costs would go down and corporate profits go up. You have fewer independent business owners and more farm workers making minimum wage. Yeah. That’s just awesome. And kids who will no longer care about anything. Were just robots, doing what we are told to do. No personal effort, responsibility, creativity is being engendered by encouraging kids not to participate. Not to mention you are going to bankrupt the family farms by now requiring them to hire others to do chores, plus have to provide benefits. Whack. Last nail in the coffin of the family farm.
Music to my ears, Sally-Oh!
Vote Obama out is the first step.
Amen… Romney 2012!!!!!
What, vote him out… just to replace him with another Big Government politician? We need someone who actually cares about our freedoms to fix this mess! Vote Ron Paul 2012. He is the only one who TRULY cares about our rights. Do your research. Find out for yourself.
Because of the opposition, the Obama Admin. is withdrawing the plan!
Outstanding! We can win!
Always do your own research before getting your knickers in a twist.
1–This is not about small family farms.
2-President cannot ‘make’ or ‘pass’ a law. Only congress can do that. President can sign it into law or veto it.
This is just silly. I live in an ag community, do you really see g-men invading and finger wagging because little Jane collected the eggs or helped milk the goat?
Remember your lessons on the three branches of government and always research from several sources, including ones that are contrary to your beliefs, before you believe something is a fact and not an opinion.
Many people feel very strongly about issues and confuse their opinions with facts.
I don’t recall more than one branch of government being involved with recent raids on raw milk producers. It’s accurate to say laws are passed by congress, but it’s necessary to acknowledge there are myriad policies and rules enforced by government agencies that bypass the “checks and balances.”
agree donna
I love extracting some of the great nutrional information I get from this blog, but it becomes so disheartening every time I read the comments on some “controversial” article about it HAS to be a conspiracy of some sort. Not EVERYTHING is built to favor big corp and has an ulterior motive. I grew up in very rural Wisconsin on a dairy farm and all my friends lived on farms. I believe in what this legislature is trying to do for kids. Yes, I do believe safety is of concern. Trust me, we did things that should never have been done. I’ve been in grain elevators, I’ve been in front of stampeding cows coming in for feed, I was driving a tractor by 8. And all because parents relied on us for help. But these types of things should NOT have been managed by kids. There was no check & balance system by some government agency making sure we were safe. And I DID have friends maimed or killed. That was part of being on a farm. We slept in our clothes because we were up at 5:30 a.m. before school. Yes, it does develop very strong work ethics. But one thing it also did, was leave many teens with no direction in life. College wasn’t pushed. Parents needed you on the farm. That’s where you stayed. Or maybe you worked as a car mechanic in town or hair dresser. There is a generational stagnancy where these kids never leave. And then when the farm dies, or the town dies, or the supporting factory of the town dies, unemployment is well above 30%! Rural living isn’t all about red barns and picket fences. Far from it. It’s about delapitated homes, trailer homes, abandoned cars in the front yard, etc. It’s a hard life. And it’s all about survival. And sometimes the kids are victims. I’m happy to see someone is looking out for them. Don’t brandish all things the goverment does as evil while we sit in our ivory towers.
Wow…you and your friends have some of the worst parents I’ve ever heard of.
Drive through rural Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa or any of the states of the grain belt and you see it. I love my parents and grandparents, etc. They did nothing but sustain a living and we all were part of it. Cows need to be milked twice a day every day. And have 300 head! Hay needs to be planted and harvested twice. All the crops need to be tended to. Then can all your veggies, make home-made jam, salt the pork, etc., etc. Do a 45 min roundtrip to school because you live miles from it. Long days and in an environment where little children have some lofty expections of them. And with it comes risk and in my opinion a very narrow-scoped future. I love the memories. I miss our family farm and the true innocence of it. But it is not a walk in the park.
kelly!! honest question here.. you actually did grow up in this so you are a great person to ask.. do you feel that your upbringing has made you better off than todays youth that does just sit at home and play games all day and never see the sunshine?? farmers in the old days did use the children because it was free labor but is it possible that somewhere in the middle is the answer were all looking for??
i think that today kids have it too easy.. sometimes a little hard work and sweat can be good for children but i can see where you are going with the “slave labor” thing.. again, just curious, do you have fond memories or is it something you regret??
-jason and lisa-
i guess i ask because the only true farmers i know are the farmers i know by first name that we see every saturday morning at market.. i know the farmers and their kids.. we always take our dog and the kids just eat it up but there is a difference between the farmers kids and the kids that you see everywhere else.. i cant help but think that the hard work “old” lifestyle has helped to make these kids more grounded.. i kid you not, the farmers 8 year olds are as mature and more grounded than the average 14 year old anywhere else..
-jason and lisa-
Oh yes – absolutely!!! I don’t regret it one bit. I am trying to turn back to the very basics of cooking my grandmother and mother instilled in me. Just taught my 5 year old today how to bake a real loaf of honey-oat bread! I may sound cynical or I hated it, but no… that’s not what I was getting at. I just think back and chuckle about the unsafe practices we did and never thought twice, and how protective I’d be about my daughter doing that same thing today. And I do believe there is a happy medium. Kids raised in very rural America experience things suburban kids will never know. Running barefoot in the creeks catching crayfish, taking turns seeing who can get on the back of the ornery bull before you get bucked off, eating berries from bushes that grew wild, having great bonfires on Friday nights as we watched the fireflies. My daughter will miss all that. But I think to myself, those are my memories, she will have ones of her own that she will cherish and hopefully with camping, fishing, and planned trips to friends’ farms, etc., she’ll experience a little of what I did. And yes, the kids work really really hard, but late in the teens, I saw many get disillusioned and lost. Drinking starts early. You don’t have a parent’s watchful eye because there is always a corn field, or a babbling brook or a quarry to sneak in to. Sex starts early. Pregnancies are young. Marriages are young. Drugs like Meth are the worst in these rural area – epidemical. And most I saw, didn’t get close to college. A community college was at least an hour away. Suburbanites keep our kids busy. In sports, activities I think. And focused on getting to college. On a farm, everyone is so busy that the minute you get some free time, it’s relished. But it’s never really filled with a planned activity. So kids lose their way. And fall back on farming because it’s all they know, not because they have the passion for it. And don’t get me wrong… some truly truly do – and the ones we see at our Farmer’s Markets certainly do. But they are a far cry from rural America.
hey kelly.. same with a factory or mill town.. marry young.. raise the kids and set them free.. i like the balance idea.. i agree you can grow up too fast.. some time between hard work and molding the children, you have to let kids be kids.. i worry with this because the government has the record of going way overboard with something like this.. i guess you really cant write a law with balance in it.. its either one way or the other but so often life doesnt work like that.. sometimes there really and truely is a grey area.. i dont like the federal government getting involved with every area of every life.. there are some bad parents out there and sure things will happen that shouldnt happen but is it right to change federal laws that punish so many for the wrong doings of a few?? i dont agree at all with slave labor of your kids but i have no problem with a hard days work..
ive been watching some amish tv show that has been coming on lately.. i think its funny between this show and people that i talk to in day to day life.. the amish that grow up on the farm want to leave and fall heavy in to drugs and drinking yet the “english” that grow up in every day america would love to fall back to the simple lifestyle.. i know i would love nothing more than to raise kids on land with green pastures and gardens.. i would love to let my kids run free and not worry about some weirdo picking them up..
again i think the true answer is balance and i dont think thats something the government has the ability to regulate.. the nature of law writes things in black and white and again, life is full of grey..i really think that power lies only in the hands of free people in a free society..
great talking kelly.. i do see your point here..
-jason and lisa-
: )