Some people live at one of the most dangerous workplaces in America – the family farm.

That’s right. The family farm. Agriculture ranks second in the nation as the most dangerous occupation, next to mining.

Farmers are at high risk for fatal and non-fatal injuries, work-related lung diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases and cancers associated with chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. Research shows that in an average year 516 workers die doing farm work in the U.S. (1992-2005).

Family members who often share the work are also at risk for injuries, illness and death. Between 175-300 children die in farm accidents each year, and thousands more are seriously injured.
If you live on a farm, you already know how dangerous it is. It is something you live with on a daily basis. Yet, with a few precautions, farm accidents are preventable.

Why is this such a tough issue? Economics are involved. Family values are involved. It goes to the heart of family farming.
It costs money to be safe. It takes money to upgrade equipment and to have safety features such as shields on power trains installed on older farm equipment. It’s money some farmers don’t have. In the scramble to get by, one place farmers often cut corners is in the area of safety.

Tractors need rollover protection. How many farmers can afford to retrofit their equipment? Tractor rollovers are the number-one cause of farm-related deaths. One-fifth of farm deaths are caused by tractor overturns.

When safety practices are discussed, farmers often say, “Get real.” Improvements are too expensive or too impractical to be used.
It takes a lot of work to supervise children on a family farm. There are lots of dangerous places to be. Children lack judgment.
Farmyards have a lot of vehicle and equipment movement.
Besides parents, there are fathers, brothers, truckers and others who come into the yard. Parents need to ensure that there are no unsupervised wanderings, not for a minute.

For young children, an enclosed play yard provides safety. Babysitters and daycare can be used when necessary. Drowning incidents accounted for one-fourth of the total deaths, and one-third of the deaths among children younger than five years old.
Parents shouldn’t try to work on the farm and watch children at the same time. Attention is divided and sometimes parents lose track of their kids – with tragic results.

Too much, too soon. Having the kids take responsibilities on the farm is a part of the process of raising the next generation of farmers, a goal many family farmers share.

Children need age- and ability-appropriate tasks. Instead, they are often expected to perform adult responsibilities.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot known about development norms for operating different pieces of farm equipment or for different farm tasks. Even when the norms are known, farmers tend to overestimate the abilities and judgment of their children.
Even if dads understand the safety issues, they will have a hard time saying no when his kids are pushing to help. Kids will have peer pressure from their farm friends.

Teens need to meet the same tractor safety certification rules as if farmers were hiring a teenager from another family. One of the statistical peaks for farm accidents is for 13-year-old boys, who have physically matured but lack mental judgment in dealing with a crisis.

Farm equipment generally isn’t designed for use by children and consequently, safety features for children are lacking. When children are operating four-wheelers, they need to wear safety helmets. Some dads may not see the necessity.

One of the biggest causes of farm child deaths comes from allowing them on tractors as extra riders. Dads and grandpas may not see the danger. They grew up in an era when unsafe farming practices were commonplace, and they survived just fine.

Farmers are in a hurry. Farmers are driven, time-conscious workers who are anxious about completing their work and getting on to the next job. Being in a hurry gets in the way of using proper safety precautions. They know better, but they think they can save time by cutting corners.

If a son has watched his father cut corners over the years and there weren’t any accidents, then his confidence and safety practices may reflect an “it can’t happen to me” attitude.

Farmers respect the need for shields for their power-trains on tractors, augers and other equipment. Sometimes they get too busy to replace a shield, and invite disaster sometime down the road. When headers get plugged, farmers need to shut off the equipment. Fingers, hands and feet shouldn’t get near running equipment.

Even when farmers have the necessary certification as pesticide applicators, they are tempted to cut corners on the use of safety clothes, goggles or gloves.

As you can see, some of these safety issues go against the grain. To farmers, it may seem like opening the door to government regulation, added expense, more inconvenience and taking children away from work experiences on their own farm.

These are all good arguments until you read the stories, see the statistics and hear of families who have suffered a tragic loss. Hopefully it won’t take an accident or a near miss to educate hard-headed, hard-nosed farmers. Good farming means putting safety first.

Dr. Val Farmer is a clinical psychologist specializing in family business consultation and mediation with farm families. He lives in Wildwood, Mo., and may be contacted through his website at www.valfarmer.com