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THE FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

FACT #1
400,000-500,000 children between the ages of 12-17 are estimated to be working in U.S. agriculture.
FACT #2
Under current U.S. law, youth working in agriculture do not receive the same protections provided to other working youth.
FACT #3
Farmworker children who migrate must be uprooted from their homes, schools, and communities 2-3 times a year.
FACT #4
Farmworker children’s mental health is suffering.
FACT #5
Agriculture is our country’s most dangerous occupation for farmworker youth.

FACT #6
Pesticides are highly toxic, and the population most vulnerable to them is farmworker children.
FACT #7
Pesticides increase the risk of developmental disorders in farmworker children and can cause childhood cancer.
FACT #8
Pesticides cause childhood cancer in farmworker children.
FACT #9
Valley Fever sickens farmworker children and their parents in the course of their work in the fields.
FACT #10
Momentum has been built to ban all children from applying or handling pesticides.

What are the Minimum Age Standards for Agricultural Employment?

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Youths ages 16 and above may work in any farm job at any time.
Youth aged 14 and 15 may work outside school hours in jobs not declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor.
Youths 12 and 13 years of age may work outside of school hours in non-hazardous jobs on farms that also employ their parent(s) or with written parental consent.
Youth under 12 years of age may work outside of school hours in non-hazardous jobs with parental consent, but only on farms where none of the employees are subject to the minimum wage requirements of the FLSA.
Local youths 10 and 11 may hand harvest short-season crops outside school hours for no more than 8 weeks between June 1 and October 15 if their employers have obtained special waivers from the Secretary of Labor.
Youth of any age may work at any time in any job on a farm owned or operated by their parents.

Resource: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs40.htm

However, kids even younger than 12 often accompany their parents to work on American farms and fields. This means that farmworker children are being put at risk from a very young age – even before birth – from the pesticides, dangerous equipment, and other hazards populating those environments. Teenagers are permitted to operate various equipment from a young age, which corresponds to an increase in the rate of tragic accidents involving youth. Though children are at the height of vulnerability when they are still in the womb, there are inadequate protections for farmworkers who are expecting a child. Children also interact with their environment in fundamentally different ways than adults, yet this is not in regulators’ minds when setting standards for things such as pesticide use.

*Minimum age for handlers and early-entry workers Handlers and early-entry workers must be at least 18 years old. (Members of owner’s immediate family are exempt from this and most other requirements of the WPS. Source: https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/requirements-under-worker-protection-standard-owners-agricultural

What are the Hazardous Occupations in Agriculture?

Minors under 16 may not work in the following occupations declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor:

operating a tractor of over 20 PTO horsepower, or connecting or disconnecting an implement or any of its parts to or from such a tractor;
operating or working with a corn picker, cotton picker, grain combine, hay mower, forage harvester, hay baler, potato digger, mobile pea viner, feed grinder, crop dryer, forage blower, auger conveyor, unloading mechanism of a nongravity-type self-unloading wagon or trailer, power post-hole digger, power post driver, or nonwalking-type rotary tiller;
operating or working with a trencher or earthmoving equipment, fork lift, potato combine, or power-driven circular, band or chain saw;
working in a yard, pen, or stall occupied by a bull, boar, or stud horse maintained for breeding purposes; a sow with suckling pigs; or a cow with a newborn calf (with umbilical cord present);
felling, buckling, skidding, loading, or unloading timber with a butt diameter or more than 6 inches;
working from a ladder or scaffold at a height of over 20 feet;
driving a bus, truck or automobile to transport passengers, or riding on a tractor as a passenger or helper;
working inside: a fruit, forage, or grain storage designed to retain an oxygen-deficient or toxic atmosphere; an upright silo within 2 weeks after silage has been added or when a top unloading device is in operating position; a manure pit; or a horizontal silo while operating a tractor for packing purposes;
handling or applying toxic agricultural chemical identified by the words “danger,” “poison,” or “warning or a skull and crossbones on the label;
handling or using explosives; and
transporting, transferring, or applying anhydrous ammonia.

The prohibition of employment in hazardous occupations does not apply to youths employed on farms owned or operated by their parents. In addition, there are some exemptions from the prohibitions:
- 14 and 15-year old student learners enrolled in vocational agricultural programs are exempt from certain hazardous occupations when certain requirements are met; and
- minors aged 14 and 15 who hold certificates of completion of training under a 4-H or vocational agriculture training program may work outside school hours on certain equipment for which they have been trained