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 almost contradicts Mrs. Obama’s campaign for childhood obesity. She encourages kids and families to get moving and eat healthy. Where do they think healthy food comes from? I just don’t understand this at all. Maybe in their minds it has something to do with child labor but, I think it’s crazy. Many farm children love working on the farm, it’s contributing to the family and such a great learning experience. I feel bad for the families that this will effect.
You made a bit of a leap of logic there with your title. They aren’t supporting video games over farm chores, they’re just operating under a misunderstanding. This seems like a misguided attempt to protect children. Instead of sensationalizing is and responding in an alarmist way, wouldn’t it seem better to educate people about the quality of working conditions on family farms versus large agricultural conglomerates? I only recently started reading your site, but I don’t love the political lean. I think I can be healthy, thrifty, frugal, AND open minded. I guess I don’t need your blog to help me.
I heard this on the radio yesterday and I am still so upset I can’t even respond. I think soon we’ll give birth and hand our child over to the government. We can’t decide anything for them anymore from vaccination to chores to schools to milk to school lunch. When and where is it going to stop? These busy nosey bodies make me sick. Mind your own damn business and get out of our lives.
Government is too big
We don’t need any more government intrusion and control. I’ve read the Bill and it’s over reaching and not needed. If the government truly cared about saving children – they’d start by making abortion illegal!! I don’t think this really has anything to do with children, but rather a way to make life harder for small family farms . . . . because we know big ag has the millions of special interest money behind it.
I would like to suggest that you rework this post to provide some sources and frame the issue as, what it is – rural kids would have some risky jobs not available to them. We don’t let kids run slicers or balers in grocery stores either, and those laws have been on the books for at least 20 years from my experience.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2012/04/25/is-obama-outlawing-farm-chores/
This is a blog and I am going to tell it like it is .. I don’t include government spin that is hastily put out due to the public backlash on this outrageous rule as part of the story.
So true! Great analogy. Most commenters here have never stepped foot on a true rural farm. Not the pretty pumpkin patch that’s 5 miles from our surburban home where we pick blueberries come Summer. These are working farms with combines, grain silos, hundreds or thousands a head of cattle, hay balers, etc. And most of these farmers are in debt up to their eyeballs buying these $250K machines so when things break or stall or jam, kids are right there with their hands in machines doing risky things. Every farm kid can tell you of someone they know who’s had a major accident or worse. Most of these equipment have been rigged to work around safety features, etc., and no OSHA is coming in to be sure they are up to snuff. Even though this has been repealed, it’s not because of some special interest twist, etc., – it truly has to do with if this was allowed to go through, the small farmer could be out of business and we as a country couldn’t survive the backlash. Children are absolutely needed on the farm – no way around it – and all the risk that comes with it. A backbone to the economy as was child labor in the early 1900’s. Don’t see this changing soon. Unfortunate.
So kids will be able to learn on their own parents farms, but not on those of their relatives. Well, regardless of the wording, the other point here is that our president is not the one who is supposed to be making up the new laws. And there shouldn’t need to be a law for every little detail of our lives! Nobody in our government seems to realize these days just what their jobs are supposed to be. Our representatives really just represent big corporations, or whoever has the money to sway their vote. The FDA is run by Monsanto. The selfless people who defend our country with their very lives are considered so dispensible that our government will withhold their pay when things get tight. Our country’s founders must be rolling in their graves by now at the mess their pride and joy has become.
I have a fantastic idea… How about we wake up and realize that this is yet another form of legislation that allows the government to regulate our lives and strip personal liberty. What if a child chooses to work at a family farm? Should ANYONE be able to take away someone’s right to choose? That’s a big fat ‘NO’.
On another level, this law would take away the experience and education needed to have a family farm for future generations, giving the disgusting, unethical, anti-environmental practice of factory farming MORE power.
This law is nothing more than corporate greed.
Thanks for posting.
We must be careful to get the facts right –
I don’t buy the government’s spin on this at all. They are just backpedaling due to the backlash. They just want to pump the rule through and then they can interpret as they like … control is the key.