Child farm-labor rules, unchanged after lobbying, probably affect more children than statistics indicate

The recent debate about child farm-labor laws revolved around what many farm families said was an integral part of growing up on a farm: helping out around the fields. What many may have overlooked, though, is that the children of migrant workers don't grow up on farms; they just work on them. And advocates say "lax enforcement of underage labor laws and inadequate safety rules for teens are threatening the long-term health of thousands" of those migrant children, Anthony Schick of The Oregonian reports. (Oregonian photo by Faith Cathcart: Diana Cristal Mendoza Sanchez, 12, picks blackberries)

Farm lobbyists have blocked tighter restrictions on the work children may legally do, and efforts for closer monitoring have failed, Schick writes. The industry won a huge victory when the Obama administration stopped the Labor Department's plan to revise child labor rules written in 1974 and adopt in regulation a policy adopted by the second Bush administration more than 10 years ago. Most child labor in heavy agricultural states is largely hidden "because official data do not include underage workers," Schick reports. "Visits to fields and interviews with farmworkers indicate it is far more widespread than statistics show."

Schick continues: "Nearly everyone involved has an incentive to allow underage labor. Farmers need crops picked, farmworkers need money children bring home and advocates for workers risk alienating whole families if they broach the subject. The tenuous residency status of many Mexican-born workers also plays a role." Even though parents and farm owners say the jobs children do are relatively safe, but Schick reports that all children working on farms face "significant risks:" Child farmworkers suffer fatal injuries four times as often as in other industries, extreme heat, repetitive strain and exposure to toxic substances can create chronic health problems. (Read more)

Researchers look to make farm labor safer for kids

With the help of a tractor-driving simulator, researchers at the University of Iowa and the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin hope to prevent young people from dying in tractor accidents by determining when they can safely operate farm equipment. Results of the study could eventually be used to revise voluntary guidelines for parents and employers about when youth are ready to use certain equipment. (Associated Press photo by Nati Harnik: Mark Gregoricka, 12, operates simulator)

There was much national debate earlier this year about the safety of children working on farms after the Obama administration proposed child farm labor rules that would have restricted the kinds of work children under 18 and 16 could do on non-family farms and adopted a narrower definition of "family farm" that had been used informally for a decade. The proposal was dropped, but the fact remains that teenagers are four times more likely to die on a farm than in any other workplace.

Researchers are studying cognitive development skills in youth while they drive tractors, because children of different ages process information and make decisions differently, The Associated Press reports. Eighty-eight children, aged 10 to 17, will perform a variety of simulated tasks while their speeds, use of brakes, accelerations and eye movements are recorded. The hope is that the simulator can pinpoint differences in the children's performance. (Read more)