Big government knows best.
Via American Thinker:
America was built by farmers, and to this day, farming is a generational industry for many. So why are federal agencies, led by President Obama appointees, intent on taking steps that will undermine and ultimately destroy our nation’s agricultural heartland?
It’s no secret that liberals hold fatty, high-carbohydrate dairy and corn products directly responsible for our nation’s obesity rates. They blame farting cows for a depleted ozone layer and consider farming streamlined animal abuse. Yet the government’s attempt to effectively ban farm kids from working on their own farms goes beyond outrageous.
Under new standards being advocated by the Labor Department, youths under the age of eighteen would be prohibited from working in hay lofts, giving shots, caring for baby animals, and being in the vicinity of animals whose behavior may be “unpredictable.” For the estimated 1.3 million youths living or working on farms, this means no longer being able to perform routine chores if the farm is set up as a corporation or a business partnership. Today, the vast majority of family farms are legally structured in this manner.
Citing agriculture’s high fatality rate, uninformed liberal elites have taken it upon themselves to create an image of uneducated, backwards farmers who are too stupid to protect themselves and their children. In fact, the Labor Department believes that “[c]hildren employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America.”