Family Farms....The Next Generation

I don't know if our non farm neighbors realize how important it is for our children to be part of the family farm.  Most family farms are passed along from generation to generation.  Even if children grow up on a farm and then strike out on their own, they have the experience and knowledge from years of working with mom and dad, or dad and grandpa, or aunts and uncles.  This is what is needed to make owning a working farm possible.  There is so much about farming that you must experience in order to learn, and with the Department of Labor trying to keep our children from doing simple things from chores, to helping load a wagon of feed for the cows, this could have made producing enough food for the next generation in this country a very difficult task.


A strong work ethic is something that comes from being responsible for chores on the farm.  Everyone in the family helps out until the job is done.  Where would the family farm be in 15 years if the children of farmers were not allowed to be around the animals, to learn how to care for them or equipment, to learn  how each piece works and what it is used for.  The years spent helping around the farm help children who want to make agriculture their career, learn about what seeds need to be planted first, how to tell if their animals aren't feeling well, when to take care of bug problems in the crops.  There are so many things that most children don't learn about but that the kids that grow up on a farm learn.... as second nature.  How to plow and disc a field and when the crops should be planted and harvested.


This issue created a huge uproar in the agriculture community.  The over reaching rules could have prevented kids from raising their 4-H projects, to helping out on Grandpa & Grandma farms.  Many in the industry used our grassroots system of contacting our legistlators to let them know these laws that the DOL were working on implementing were not good for farmers in Michigan or any other state.

For now, our children can keep going to the fair, showing their 4-H projects and enjoying life on the farm.

The President of the United States said...not on my watch!  These proposed rules/laws will be put on hold while the Obama adminstration is in place.  This is good for now, but we need to keep working on eliminating those nonsense laws from coming back.  While safety and caution should be used when we give our children tasks to perform on the farm, we also know that the farm is a tool to teach our children a strong work ethic, hard work and the care and protection of animals and the environment.  There are so few family farms feeding an ever growing population now.  We need to encourage our young people to stay on the farm and keep agriculture alive in Michigan and the United States.  Let's keep the ability of the next generation of farmers learning from their parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, friends and neighbors!