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WWee AArree HHeerree FFoorr AAllll YYoouurr AAuuccttiioonn NNeeeeddssReal Estate • Farm Equipment • Household

By Matt Petersonmatt.peterson@austindailyherald.com

It’s no secret that kids drivetractors, raise cattle and doback-breaking farmwork — allbefore they can legally drivecars or run cash registers attheir hometown gas stations.But the U.S. Department of

Labor aims to change that in aneffort to reduce youth farm-re-lated injuries and deaths andbring equality with non-agricul-tural jobs that have more strin-gent age requirements.According to the DOL, “The

Fair Labor Standards Act cur-rently sets age 12 as the legallimit for farm work with exemp-tions available for children asyoung as age 10 or 11.” Age 14 isanother point at which farm-working kids can receive moreexemptions from labor laws.While kids who work on their

family farms will be exemptfrom any of the proposedchanges, plenty of others wouldhave to consider doing some-thing else.Some changes aim to prohibit

workers younger than 16 fromworking with heavy machinery,driving tractors, workingaround timber or from certainheights, according to the DOL.Other proposals include ban-

ning anyone younger than 18from working in grain elevators,bins, silos, feedlots and stock-yards.Ask Kyle Sivesind, 17, of

Racine. He’s done his share offarmwork and knows farmersaren’t hiring kids to just carrybuckets. He said with manytasks off limits, not much is leftfor some teenage and youngerfarmers.

“Last summer when I wasworking, that’s mostly what Idid — I was out on a tractor, andI enjoyed doing it,” he said.Though Sivesind is now old

enough to be exempt from mostof the proposed changes, he saidthe new laws could put farmersand hard-working kids in apinch.“It would put a big strain on

farmers, I think,” Sivesind said,

who added that he notices manyfarmers hiring kids to not onlygive them chances but to possi-bly ensure that they have help inthe future.“I know a lot of farmers who

like hiring high school studentsjust to get them ready for theworkforce,” he added.DOL officials report that

safety is a big concern, espe-cially because at least 6 percentof the agricultural workforce isyounger than 18 and many ofthem may be inexperiencedaround dangerous equipment.Furthermore, rules for farm-working youth have not beenupdated since the 1970 FairLabor Standards Act, and fatal-ity rates for farm-workingyouth are reportedly four timeshigher than non-farmingyouths.“Children employed in agri-

culture are some of the mostvulnerable workers in Amer-ica,” said Secretary of LaborHilda L. Solis. “Ensuring theirwelfare is a priority of the de-partment, and this proposal isanother element of our compre-hensive approach.”Yet a National Agricultural

Statistics Survey of four sepa-rate years — 2001, 2004, 2006 and2009 — shows that working-

youth injuries and deaths onfarms decreased in each sam-pled year. And Sivesind said he’s never

been nervous about his safetywhile farming.“Not at all — because every

person I’ve worked for, they’vedrilled safety into our heads,”Sivesind said. “They make youdouble-check everything you do.I’ve never felt nervous. I felt re-ally comfortable, and I know myfriends would say the samething.”Though the issue of changing

the labor laws has been swirlingaround since the DOL issued itsproposed guidelines in fall 2011,officials have again been re-ad-dressing the issue in the pastseveral days, including SarahPalin, who bashed the Obamaadministration about the pro-posed changes.The DOL has repeatedly

pointed out that the entireissue has fostered many mis-conceptions, such as peopleworrying about their kidsbeing affected on their familyfarms. The DOL is still slog-ging through comments from apublic comment period it held,and an official ruling on theproposed laws may be in thenear future.

Feds may put age limits on ag labor in effort to protect teens

Kyle Sivesind, 17, of Racine, has been exposed to farming his entire life. Hehas worked on several farms and now milks cows for a dairy farmer. He saidlimiting the amount of work young farmers can do would be damaging toboth young workers and the farmers for whom they work. Matt Peterson/matt.peterson@austindailyherald.com

Limitations for farm kids