WINNIPEG – Farms are the only setting where workplace and playground are the same piece of land. The outcome of this unavoidable circumstance is often tragic.
In addition to the 171 young lives lost during the 1990s, another 1,849 kids younger than 14 were hospitalized with injuries they received on Canadian farms. Preschoolers accounted for half of the fatalities and nearly a quarter of the serious injuries.
This data was presented to a national conference on child care held in Winnipeg Nov. 13. But data cannot measure the magnitude of this heart-breaking problem – or solve it.
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According to the Canadian Agricultural Injury Surveillance Program, the circumstance may be unavoidable but the outcome can be changed. A report from the program said: “These injuries are preventable. Innovative solutions to address the need for rural child care are required.”
The basic farm situation is difficult to change, admits Karen Pedersen, women’s president of the NFU.
“Virtually all farm parents are working long hours on the farm or they’re working off farm because they need the income,” she said during a conference panel.
The Cut Knife, Sask., honey producer said the typical farm parent in Canada, both mom and dad, each work 77 hours a week on and off the farm.
About 48 percent of all farm adults hold an off-farm job. This represents a lot of hours each week that a parent’s full attention cannot be given to young children on the farm.
“Where are the children?” Pedersen said. “Naturally, they’re wherever the on-farm parent is at that moment. They’re playing in the same fields, in the same livestock facilities and on the same machinery where the parents are working. That can’t be helped. Where else can they be?
“The gravel driveway by the grain bin where the semi pulls up is the exact same spot where the three year old was playing five minutes before. That’s just the way it is on the farm.
“Think of yourself as a kid. Where’s the best place in the world to play hide and seek? On a farm, with all those buildings and machinery. That also makes it the perfect setting for children to get hurt.”
Pedersen said when she was a child, she rode along on an open deck swather, sitting in a box, with no cab or deck rail. Today’s machinery may be safer, but kids are still right there, doing whatever the parents happen to be doing that day, she said.
“I honestly don’t know of a farming operation of any kind that doesn’t have the potential to be very dangerous or fatal for a little kid.”
In previous generations, farm families were larger, grandparents stayed on the farm and the nearest neighbour was less than a kilometre away or maybe straight across the road. There were always people available to look after young children. On today’s farm, nearly all of those potential babysitters have vanished from the scene.
“Even if you have grandparents on the farm, I don’t think an 80-year-old person has the energy to keep up with a three year old,” said Pedersen. “Nor should they be expected to.”
Pederson pointed out that the conventional system of day care cannot be applied to the rural situation. It might be necessary to transport children 60 km or more one way to get enough heads together for a regular day-care centre. She emphasized that it is not feasible or desirable to send all the farm kids to a central city location to grow up.
Nor does the concept of a nine to five operating schedule work for farmers. Calving season is a prime example, she said of the fact that farming is a 24 hour, seven day business.
On the opening day of the conference, federal social development minister Ken Dryden announced that the next budget would provide fresh federal money for a national child-care plan.
Responding to that announcement, Pedersen said, “no matter what kind of plan we’re talking about, we need the flexibility for farm children to safely stay on the farm. If your off-farm job is subsidizing your farm, it’s pretty difficult to pay a qualified person to come in and looks after your kids. It doesn’t make economic sense. That’s what needs to be addressed in a national child-care plan if it’s going to be useful to farm kids.”
