REGINA – The death of a four-year-old Saskatchewan farm boy, killed last week when he fell out of a tractor in which he was riding with his mother, reinforced the frustration felt by farm women.
The accident was announced at a provincial conference of three farm groups, and feelings of horror translated into action as they pledged to write to governments, manufacturers of farm machinery, rural municipal politicians and health regions. The groups will ask that if child seats are built into machinery and trucks, seatbelts should be installed as well.
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Farm safety experts advise that children should not ride in machinery, but parents do take them, in preference to leaving children alone in the house or yard, said Nina Burnell, a member of the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes.
If children are present, then manufacturers should be responsive, she said.
“We don’t just want air conditioning and a place to put our Coke can,” in machinery cabs, added Sara Irwin.
Self-promotion
The need to educate the public about the role of farm women was another topic. It could be done through the media, through the Agriculture in the Classroom program and through a centralized listing of names of farm women ready to serve on government and other agency boards, said the group. It was also suggested that the three provincial farm women’s groups could increase overall membership by recruiting for each other.
Follow-up to the second international farm women’s conference held last June in Washington, D.C., was discussed. The event was attended by 13 Saskatchewan women, who will forward suggestions for agenda items and speakers to the Spanish organizers of the next international conference to be held in two years.
They also plan to invite Gilbert Normand, the federal minister in charge of the Farm Women’s Bureau, to speak in Saskatchewan about the lack of funding and priorities given by bureaucrats to prairie farm women’s issues.
