Growing up on twenty-five acres, I dreaded the tedious labors that required a successful operation of a small family farm. I abhorred waking up at 6:00 AM in order to check the irrigation of our crops before going to school, and I detested coming home only to return outside in 100-degree California heat to prune trees, spray weeds, pull hoses, clean filters, and fix leaks sprang by thirsty squirrels.
Harvest time was no better. It was cheaper for my brothers and me to pick the oranges, wash them, and bag them than it was to hire crews to do the same. Harvesting Washington Navel oranges is done in winter, and 32-degree cold is just as frustrating as 100-degree heat. If it dropped far enough below freezing, our job was even more detestable: hauling out smudge pots–metal chimneys with a metal base for burning oil–to place sporadically throughout the orchard so the trees would not freeze; fixing more leaks in hoses due to expanded water; numbed fingers attempting to manipulate tiny parts in the sprinkler system.
I learned to drive a tractor (age six) before I learned to drive a car (age ten). I was in frequent contact with pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic materials. Chainsaws were as frequent a tool as pipe-cutters.
We raised chickens and pigs; and while the animated nature of beasts and fowl made their cultivation a little more enjoyable, it was still hard work, and I would have rather stayed inside listening to the radio or reading a book (we had no television, else I would have rather done that). In high school, I was an active member of the Future Farmers of America–not because I suddenly loved farming, but it was what I knew. I showed pigs, and judged citrus and ornamental horticulture.
I envied the luxury and leisure of the urban class, even though in many respects they were poorer than we. I found as many excuses to go over to friends’ houses in the city (if 250 people may be considered a city), to enjoy the luxury of afternoon cartoons and video games.
My first job (age twelve) was working on someone else’s farm; my family’s employees were often my or my brothers’ friends who could use whatever extra money they could earn.
Had Obama been president in the 1980s or 1990s, and Hilda Solis his Secretary of Labor, I would have secretly campaigned for his re-election. For it is under our current administration that the Labor Department is set to issue new guidelines on child labor on family farms.
No longer may parents employ children in the “storing, marketing, and transporting” of farm produce–whether animal or vegetable. Additionally, the regulations place restrictions on even the cultivation and harvest of some crops. Children under the age of sixteen will not be able to handle tobacco at all. With its additional restrictions against the handling of “animals[,] pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins,” this proposal is a mere step away from restricting children from doing any sort of labor for any crop or animal. No longer will children be able to drive tractors, four-wheelers, use chainsaws, motorized weed-sprayers, and, perhaps, even an electric drill. Members of 4-H and FFA may not be able to sell the products of their labor.
As I left my family’s farm for the Marine Corps, I was glad to relieve myself of that lifestyle; but as the farm grew more distant, and I more experienced with the tasks of work, I realized how much that lifestyle had set me up for success. Reward, in the life of a farmer, is the slow and arduous product of careful cultivation, monotonous repetition, and diligent attention to detail. It is not easily achieved, but it is easily avoided. A single bad day in which sloth triumphs over industry may be the difference between a bumper crop and a failed crop. The failure to engage in constructiveness is not the choice to engage in stasis; it is the decision to practice destruction, for nothing knows the law of entropy so well as agriculture. Dependence on nature is always humbling, and can always remind an individual of his impotence no matter the size of his accomplishment. Virtue and proactivity are rewarded–not manipulation and inactivity.
In retrospect, it is not the pains of labor that I recall so clearly; it is the delivery into the world the fruits of that labor. Selling our goods, whether at auction, to packing houses, or to drivers kind enough to stop at our roadside store (which consisted of a pickup and hand-painted plywood signs that said “Oranges For Sale,” or “Se Vende Naranjas”), was a source of immense pride for me–a manifestation, both tangible and intangible, of remunerated effort. I remember more than the mud, slop, and stench of porcine and poultry cultivation the attachment and respect I gained for animals, and the wealth and nourishment I enjoyed either through their company, slaughter, or auction. I recall with fondness the Greenhand Ceremony more than I recall with disdain the early mornings and laborious weekends of FFA activities.
I no longer envy the citied children; I wonder why they do not envy me. I no longer see the luxurious city as a progressive escape from frugal farming; I see civilization as a dependent child of agriculture.
The Labor Department has said that these restrictions would not apply to children of parents who actually own the farm. (Technically, Michelle Obama would no longer be allowed to use Sasha and Malia to carry food from their garden to the White House.) But this exception proves the perceived rule of their pretended power to regulate in all matters the rearing of children. Should there really have to be an exception saying parents may employ their children in the family business, or does the parent retain this permission even without a benevolent government exemption?
Who benefits from such a regulation? Farm labor will become more expensive. Tenant farmers may no longer use their children to assist in sustaining the family’s sustenance. FFA and 4-H clubs may be forced to hire professional marketers for the sale of livestock at auction. Every advantage that small farms use, and every advantage the consumer enjoys from agricultural clubs, can be dashed from existence at the behest of bureaucracy. In this War on Children, teenagers who cannot otherwise find work, will have one more avenue of employment cut off from their pursuit of opportunity.
Family farms, straining from the burden of increased costs and regulations, will be sold to Monsanto or other Agrindustrialists; the self-sufficient family will be an American folklore, not an American romance. The rural work ethic of patient production will be further replaced by the urban desires for instant gratification. The distribution of food will continue to be concentrated in the hands of a few, supported tacitly by a state that inhibits competition through regulation. Seeing an oligarchy of corporate husbandmen, the people will demand the total nationalization of food. And the dependency of our populace upon the rich–mediated by a confiscatory state–will persist.
Update/Correction: Under the current proposals, it appears that 4-H and FFA will not be directly affected by the regulations, as there is no employer/employee relationship (this also applies to Michelle/Sasha and Malia, though it would not apply to the children of tenant farmers). However, it is easy to argue that 4-H and FFA can be indirectly affected, as the regulations generally inhibit the opportunities for small farms’ successes. Additionally, the employer/employee loophole may be exploited for a while by parents who employ their children’s friends (and perhaps “donate” some money to their parents)–but this will only last until a child’s friend is injured.
Update #2: It appears the Department of Labor is backing off these proposed new rules amidst heavy pressure from, well, everyone. I applaud the Department of Labor and the Obama administration for scrounging up enough wisdom to halt their needless impositions. But lest the victor think his battle over, understand that the Department of Labor sincerely thinks it within their power to regulate our liberties as they proposed. These federal bureaucrats honestly believe they may determine the operational risk management for every condition and every person. They did not retreat because they believe their actions unwarranted, they retreated only because their actions were impolitic.
