The United States Department of Labor is trying to get the legal working age for most farm jobs changed to 18 years old.

This law passing would basically eliminate farm work for those under 18. Anyone under this proposed age would not be able to work with breeding stock, most animals over six months of age, any equipment with more than 20 PTO horse power, and no jobs in stock yards, feed lots, grain and feed facilities and auctions. The only exceptions to this rule would be for the children of the operations owner, or possibly regular participants of proposed safetl courses.

Depriving all of these young adults, trying to work hard to earn money so they don't always have to beg mom and dad, is just wrong! With the restrictions on animal contact the FFA and 4H clubs would lose a majority of their participants. These kids pride themselves on their animals, working their tails off to get ready for fair and other youth shows. Why tell the kids that actually want to work no? How can you deprive a child from this great process of learning responsibility and what hard work can accomplish? I for one live for the hard summer months trying to get animals ready for fair, and that glorious week of fair that makes all the hard work worth it.

A lot of people may think that children and young adults have no place on a farm because of the dangers, but it's not any less dangerous for the adults that we rely on to feed our country. I do agree that there shold be some restrictions on what can be done but those restrictions should be jointly set by the parents, worker, and the owner/manager of the agricultural facility. It is possible for young adults to work safely.

Everyone has to eat, and to do that we rely on the farmers to produce for us. With the average age of our farmers growing older and older we need a way to bring the younger people into the field of agriculture. If they can't experience it when they're young then they most likey will not feel the same desire to as they grow older and of the proposed legal age.

Just think, if the government can change something like the age requirment to work in agriculture, what will they change next? How far will they go to affect our personal decisions? And what will happen to the FFA and 4H programs when they have kids, but nothing to show? Please help us keep this from happening and allow the teens to make this choice for themselves.