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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] child labor
  • Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 23:20:18 -0500

Recently NPR's All things considered ran a serious (I believe, they gave promos so often that it seemed it went for several days) about farming and the children of farmers working on farms. While these days I seldom have the stomach to listen to an ATC story all the way through, the pieces I heard seemed to be raising the question as to whether we should pass legislation restricting or regulating the children of farmers working on the farm.

The reasons given were: farming is the second most dangerous occupation (it made me wonder what was the first -fishing? timbering?) and that so many family farmers, because they couldn't afford outside labor, have their children do farm work.

What are people's comments on this? Do you children work on your farm? Should child labor, even our own children's labor, be limited? Is it unfair for farmers, who work in a dangerous profession, to force their children to help support the family farm?

Or, is this whole campaign, which might be initiated somewhere else (very few news stories come from the actual reporters, most come from a pr person for an industry) just another attempt to attack family farms in a way they are particularly vulnerable?




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