"Changes to child labor laws hurt farmers."

There is a farmer that hires local teenagers to pick strawberries and raspberries every summer, and I have been working there for 5 years, every summer since I was 17, picking those berries. My younger sisters have worked there too since they were 13. Boy, I think that the law is right, for my back was killin' me from bending over to pick the harmful berries! GO Government! GO!
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There will be lots of unemployed teens in our area if the Law is in place, perhaps the prices of the berries will go up cause of that.
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I know of 4 over my 63 years of NOT living on a farm. I would guess the number would be higher had I been involved with everyday farming issues.

One was a dear classmate at 17 who rolled a tractor on his parents farm.
One was a 10 year old student who was removed from my 4th grade for "Home schooling" and rolled a tractor while going out to spread manure as part of his "animal husbandry" curriculum. This law would not have protected him from that particular sperm donor.
Two were recent - 16 and 17 boys. One who fell into a grain bin and the other who tried to save him. I'm not sure if they were being paid or if they were helping a friend who's father owned the farm. Either way, they shouldn't have been where they were and had already been told so. Never-the-less, a family is going to lose their farm in the course of the lawsuits.

Now the list of children's deaths from car accidents, crossing streets, etc is far higher.

Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) Gardening zone 5a - 4b in south-est, central-est Wisconsin
 
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Not to worry. Y'all can always join or form a gang and start knocking over convenience stores, or maybe shoplifting or car theft might be more to your taste? Than again, there's always the very lucrative illegal drug market.
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Thank you very much!
 
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Well! That explains the law perfectly! Seriously, it does. The government is doing all it can to get rid of small family farms - the ones most likely to feel the effects of this law regardless of the 'talking points' that are given by lawmakers. Soon all that will be left is large factory farms.

Youth (under 18) cannot work in "factory" employment under current laws. With all the low-paid workers coming into our country, I can't imagine why a factory farm would even want to employ someone so young -- not with a seemingly endless supply of farm workers -- unless they find that young people will work for even less that the substandard wages being offered now.

Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) Gardening zone 5a - 4b in south-est, central-est Wisconsin
 
Just read everything. Response:

I think this is still a bad thing, but after reading the unbiased article, I am less against it. I told my agriculture science teacher about it this morning and she almost flipped...

I have a job milking cows at a local dairy. I've been working there since I was 14. If this law is passed, and you have to be 18 to work in animal husbandry at all, my boss will only have one employee to milk. He needs his time and his sons' time to feed and work in the field. So he will be in a very bad place.

I think that the one part about not allowing teens under 16 to operate machinery is actually a good idea. My one friend almost killed my boss' son because of a tractor accident...
 
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Not to worry. Y'all can always join or form a gang and start knocking over convenience stores, or maybe shoplifting or car theft might be more to your taste? Than again, there's always the very lucrative illegal drug market.
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Thank you very much!

However, just in case you're considering the illegal drug option remember; Marijuana is out. You cannot grow your own. That would be working on a farm.
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Thank you very much!

However, just in case you're considering the illegal drug option remember; Marijuana is out. You cannot grow your own. That would be working on a farm.
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Because breaking the law in two ways at the same time is out of the questions for us teens... yeah.
 
Just in response to the question "How many kids die on farms"....

http://www.preventinjury.org/PDFs/RURAL_INJURY.pdf

http://www.hicahs.colostate.edu/Documents/Factsheets/childrenonthefarm.pdf

http://hillsborofreepress.com/agriculture-news/farm-accidents-still-a-threat-for-children.html

From these sites, and others, it looks like about 300 kids die in farming accidents each year, and about 24,000 are seriously injured.

Just the numbers, for those who asked.

My first jobs were working on a farm. I suffered one injury, and a friend suffered another. Neither were serious, but both could have been. I was 12, my friend about 14. I fell off a loaded hay wagon on the way from the field to the barn. I had some serious road rash on my face, and a concussion. My friend put a pitch fork through her foot; one tine, all the way through.
 

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