Child farmworkers

A few days ago, President Barack Obama’s administration gave up on the idea of implementing new regulations limiting the types of work that children ages 12 to 15 can perform on farms.

We think it’s unfortunate that a worthwhile idea, which had been negotiated to take into account the concerns of small farmers, was apparently defeated through lobbying by groups that don’t seem very concerned about the safety of child farmworkers, many of whom don’t exactly work on family farms.

For more than a year, the U.S. Labor Department polished the proposal, which would have prevented children of these ages from using certain types of machinery, including tractors. Shocking numbers are behind this proposal: In 2010, 16 minors died as a result of injuries at work; 12 of them were agricultural workers.

While some small and medium farmers expressed concern about the idea of the government preventing them from continuing their family traditions of having their children and other minors who are members of the family work at the farms, the regulations the government was working on would have excluded family farms and farms run by the parents of child farmworkers.

Even so, the agriculture industry strongly lobbied against the measure. As a case in point, the National Milk Producers Federation spent more than $130,000 lobbying Congress to void the measure during the first three months of this year. There was also pressure from Republican senators and representatives-and some Democratic ones-from rural states.

It seems that the Labor Department gave in to pressure from the industry during an election season. What is certain is that this is not only about the children of small farmers who help their families: It’s about more than 300,000 minors under 18 who work in the agriculture industry, and this number doesn’t even include those working for contractors.

The rules the federal government was proposing were being developed for a reason. Although by all appearances they would not have affected traditions in family farms, there was no agreement on them. Unfortunately, without these standards, the lives of some child farmworkers will continue to be at risk.