Growing up on the farm, but not too close

LEIPSIC — With 19 grandchildren, Elmer and Carolyn Gable have had plenty of help on their midsize dairy farm. The help gets even greater when considering all the nieces, nephews and “neighbor kids” who have given a hand over the years.Under new proposed rules by the U.S. Department of Labor, the couple and their children now running the Leipsic farm would be without the extra hands. “When you have a dairy farm like we do, it is very labor intensive,” Carolyn Gable said. “Everything needs individual attention. Animals are like people. You have to work pretty hard to keep them cleaned, healthy and fed.”The proposed rule, which is being revisited by the Department of Labor, would restrict children younger than 16 from working on family farms unless the farms are solely owned by their parents. It would make it illegal for grandchildren and nieces and nephews to contribute. In addition, partnerships or limited liability corporations, which the Gable farm now is, would not be considered family-owned. Opponents of the changes say it will kill small farms, negatively impact organizations like 4-H and Future Farmers of America, and diminish an already shrinking agriculture community. U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, points to the numbers: Less than 1 percentage of Ohio's population earns a living on a farm, less than 2 percent nationwide. “And those are the people growing our food in this country,” he said. “To have the next generation out there, they have to be on the farm. It is not something you learn from a book. The farm is where you learn.”Proposed rulesThe rule also prohibits children from handling animals and almost all powered farm equipment. Current rules prohibit certain youth from operating tractors at 20 horsepower or greater. The proposed rule would prohibit use of all power-driven equipment, which includes anything other than hand and foot power. Driving lawn mowers and handheld weed cutters would be considered off limits for those under 16. Working six feet off the ground would also be banned for those under 16.The proposed rules, which have not been updated since the 1970 Fair Labor Standards Act, came out last fall. Since then, the department has said it will reconsider it and come out with a re-proposed portion of the rule by early summer. Pressure from lawmakers and the public led to the department taking another look.Latta has been outspoken about the changes. He wrote a letter to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in December and is co-sponsoring the Preserving America's Family Farms Act, which prohibits the Department of Labor from implementing any regulation that would restrict farm youth from working on family-owned farms. Latta also recently joined other Ohio Republican representatives to submit comments from Ohio farm families to Solis. The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and Ohio Association of Agricultural Educators collected the comments. Safety at rootThe proposed rule is designed to increase protections for children working in agriculture while preserving the benefits that safe and healthy work can provide, according to the Department or Labor's Wage and Hour Division. The division was driven to update its 40-year-old child labor regulations by studies showing that children are four times more likely to be killed while performing agricultural work than while working in all other industries combined. The department has said the proposals are to “bring parity between the rules for young workers employed in agricultural jobs and the more stringent rules that apply to those employed in non-agricultural workplaces.”Latta said the rules are poorly conceived and called them another example of the Obama administration overreaching into sectors it shouldn't be in. “These ideas that we are out to protect kids, that is a noble idea, but they have to understand what they are doing with the legislation and how it can truly affect the future of agriculture in America,” Latta said, questioning whether those regulating have ever experienced a farm.Safety is important, Gable said, but measures have always been in place. She's watched youth working on her farm like a “guardian angel” and is certain others do the same.“We watch, we know what they are doing, we take care of them,” she said. “All farm families are that way.”Hard at workYouth on the Gable farm help with all kinds of jobs, including milking, feeding, mowing grass and gardening. Children love being on the farm and especially being around animals, Gable said, and by the time they are in fifth or sixth grade they can carry a bucket to feed and can bale hale. Grandson Michael Schmenk started feeding calves and helping two years ago at age 11. Now he also bales straw and grinds feed. The eighth-grader buys video games and is saving for college. “I think it is a really good learning experience for me,” he said. “It gives me an idea of what a job is like, so when I get older and get a different job, I will know the basics of different stuff.”While the farm benefits from the young workers, so do the youth. Gable has seen it with all of her grandchildren, who have successfully gone into all kinds of professions. “They have learned a good work ethic. They are responsible, they take care of things, they know how to go ahead and do things,” she said. Youth who work on farms learn life skills and have an appreciation of what it means to put in a hard day's work and an appreciation of where their food comes from, said Mark Light, 4-H youth educator with the Hardin County OSU Extension. It also gives them something positive to do.“If you take those opportunities away, you are creating more of an open gap for them to do other things, which may not be as productive for society,” he said. “More opportunities to get into trouble or get distracted.”Elida High School seniors Alex Shaw Roberts and Casey Troyer have worked on family farms, not owned by their parents, for as long as they can remember. The work started with getting tools, sweeping grain bins and mowing. It grew as they aged. Both are on the farms daily.“It gets you ready to go out and get a job,” Shaw Roberts said. “If you do this and then go out and do manual work, you think this is really easy compared to what you have to do every day on the farm.”It builds character, Troyer added.“It gives you the mental preparation that you need, and then when you go and do another job, you are ready to work. It makes you hardworking,” he said. Troyer added that, because working on a farm is a constant learning experience, waiting to work until age 16 would put youth behind. “You learn when you are working,” he said. “If you're just starting at 16, you would have to learn everything.”The work ethic is something farm children carry with them through life, Latta said.“They learn a very good work ethic because, if you are not out there doing your job, the crops don't grow, animals don't get moved from point A to B,” he said. “It is your livelihood, period.”Often, youth are looking for a little extra spending money and money for college. Gable's grandchildren learned early on that “money doesn't grow on trees” and how to be responsible with their money.Daughter Diane Schmenk, who keeps the books for the farm, said working on a farm offers youth a flexible schedule and a chance to make a little extra money. Often times, she said, it is the 13- to 15-year-olds who are most interested. Older teens are sometimes looking for more steady work. Schmenk worries about the summers if the proposed rules stand.“There is just so much work then that adults do and kids can't,” she said. “Kids take up the slack of getting calves fed, things they can do and are not dangerous.”Youth organizationsMichael likes being around animals, so 4-H is a perfect fit for him. Next year, he will join FFA. All of Gable's children and grandchildren have been involved in such programs. They keep youth out of trouble, she said.It was just natural for Troyer and Shaw Roberts to join Elida's FFA. Their time on the farm put them ahead of some.“Coming into Ag class, I have been prepared for all the contests we have done. I feel like I am a step ahead of everything,” Shaw Roberts said. He and Troyer will study agriculture and diesel at the University of Northwestern Ohio next year. Both want their own farms.Elida teacher and FFA adviser Dennis Pohlman worries about the loss of job opportunities for students under the proposed rules. The Elida program has 54 students and about half already have farm experience when they enter high school. Pohlman wonders how the rules might affect the program. “Now students can work at a place and use it as a FFA project,” he said. “It gives them job opportunities and skills, and sometimes they earn FFA awards.”In Hardin County, 17 percent of youth are in 4-H, Light said. He previously worked in Allen County, where it was 5 percent. Those who do 4-H animal projects sometimes work with animals on farms not owned by their parents, Light said. “Even some kids who live in town have the ability to work on farms through 4-H and FFA,” he said, adding that it wouldn't be possible under the proposed rules.With a struggling economy and higher grain and input costs, Light said 4-H is already suffering, including the kinds and sizes of projects youth take on. The new rules could only make it worse, he said. Youth can begin doing 4-H projects at age 8, but introductory programs begin at age 5. Getting them interested in farming, and in agricultural organizations, at a young age is vital.“Like with anything, if youth don't get involved at an early age, then it is harder to get them involved at a later age and take interest in things,” Light said. Killing family farmsSmall family farms will be a thing of the past under the proposed rules, Latta said. He adds that keeping a strong agricultural base in the U.S. is a must so the country isn't at the mercy of the rest of the world for food.“The last thing I want to do is eat a lot of imported food,” he said. Part of what Michael likes about working on the farm is doing so with his cousins. “Family farms are just a benefit to keeping families together,” Gable said. Many believe the rules will cause a shift from small, local farms to larger farms. When that happens, Light said, it will be less likely that farming will be passed on from one generation to the next. Farming often goes beyond family, Light added.“It is often neighbor helping neighbor and therefore it is youth who have grown up next to other neighbors and have helped each other out throughout the years,” he said. “If that is taken away, the whole community aspect of farming goes away as well.”