Scott Heiberger

Agricultural media coverage of farm safety: review of the literature

ABSTRACT Agricultural media merit increased attention in addressing dynamic changes in safety aspects of one of the nation’s most hazardous industries. Changes in farming, such as larger-scale, new “niche” enterprises and new technologies, bring new forms of risk to the safety of those who live and work on farms and ranches. At the same time, traditional agricultural media—commercial firms that publish farm periodicals and commercial radio/television stations and networks that provide farm programming—are changing dramatically. In the face of media convergence, these enterprises provide an increasing menu of agricultural information services delivered by print, radio, and television, plus a host of new electronic media. This review of literature addressed the role and importance of commercial agricultural media in the United States, the scope and pattern of their safety coverage, and the opportunities they represent. The review involved searches of 14 bibliographic databases, as well as reference lists of relevant studies and contacts with farm safety experts. Analysis of 122 documents suggested that limited focus has been directed to the role of commercial agricultural media in safety decisions on US farms. Findings revealed that they continue to serve an efficient, early-stage role in creating awareness and interest, providing information, forming attitudes, and stirring consideration of farm safety. Potentials are seen as expanding through the interactive features of social media and other new services offered by these media firms. Findings also identified research needs, 100 farm safety topics for reporting, and opportunities for strengthening safety coverage by commercial agricultural media.

Lessons learned from the child agricultural labor law debate

What happened? That was the question asked by stunned safety and health professionals after the withdrawal of proposed updates to the federal labor laws (Agricultural Child Labor Hazardous Occupations Orders) pertaining to hired youth under age 16. After all, weren’t these modest and overdue revisions based on years of research indicating that young workers experience a disproportionate number of injuries in a handful of especially hazardous tasks?1 What about data showing that teenaged agricultural workers are four times as likely to die on the job than teens working in other industries?2 Children of US farmers would still have been able to perform any task at any age on their farms, and even the updated rules for hired youth would not have been as protective as they are for non-agricultural occupations. Open and shut case, right? Post the new rules in the federal register, wait 60 days, then implement. Not so fast. Many farmers and ranchers, and groups that represent their interests, along with members of Congress and some agricultural educators, spoke out against the rules, which the US Department of Labor withdrew on April 26, 2012, approximately eight months after introducing them. The dramatic rise and fall of the revised rules was well-documented in the mainstream agricultural media. What began with mundane articles announcing the comment period concluded with stories reflecting polarization into winning and losing sides. Child safety is a non-partisan issue. So again, what happened? I posed this question to agricultural communicators in attendance at the Agricultural Media Summit (AMS), August 5–7, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Summit is the largest annual gathering of crop and livestock publications professionals in the US. It is a joint meeting of the American Agricultural Editors’ Association, Livestock Publications Council and the American Business Media Agri Council. Nearly 600 attended. I interviewed 25 attendees, including 10 editors, five college seniors majoring in agricultural communications, three reporters, two publishers, three public relations professionals, one art director, and one college agricultural communications instructor. They represent mainstream agricultural media. Nearly all grew up living on and/or working on farms and ranches. All had an opinion. None supported passing the rules as written by the Department of Labor. Most characterized the rules as “overreach.” About one-third called the proposed rules “well intentioned” but in the words of one respondent, “they tried to use a butcher knife where a scalpel would have been more appropriate.” Although the updated rules were intended for hired youth, such as migrants climbing 15foot ladders to pick fruit, opposition coalesced around the family farm and traditional rural culture. The primary concerns of those interviewed:

Establishing a publicly available national database of US news articles reporting agriculture-related injuries and fatalities

BACKGROUND The AgInjuryNews system and dataset are a news report repository and information source for agricultural safety professionals, policymakers, journalists, and law enforcement officials. METHODS AgInjuryNews was designed as a primary storage and retrieval system that allows users to: identify agricultural injury/fatality events; identify injury agents and emerging issues; provide safety messages for media in anticipation of trends; and raise awareness and knowledge of agricultural injuries and prevention strategies. Data are primarily collected through Google Alerts and a digital media subscription service. Articles are screened, reviewed, coded, and entered into the system. RESULTS As of January 1, 2018, the system contained 3028 unique incidents. Of those, 650 involved youth, and 1807 were fatalities. The system also had registered 329 users from 39 countries. CONCLUSIONS AgInjuryNews combines injury reports into one dataset and may be the most current and comprehensive publicly available collection of news reports on agricultural injuries and deaths.

Looking for Lessons in the Child Agricultural Labor Law Dust-up

We depart, with this editorial, from a tradition of commenting on the Journal of Agromedicine’s current content. Instead, we will discuss the recent juxtaposition of events which have implications for our readership. The last issue of the journal (Volume 17, Issue 2) addressed children’s health and safety in agriculture by presenting a series of articles1–16 that served as the foundational thinking behind the “Blueprint for Protecting Children in Agriculture: The 2012 Action Plan.”17 We assembled the issue while comments flooded into the US Department of Labor mostly opposing its proposed revisions to the Agricultural Child Labor Hazardous Occupations Orders. The separate “Blueprint” document was released with a foreword by US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in late April, 2012. One day later, the Obama Administration withdrew its proposed rulemaking. A wakeup call has been delivered to clinicians, public health practitioners, scientists and farmers who believe that the right to go home whole and alive after a day’s work must be protected and extended to the entire workforce. We must learn from the failed attempt to update rules governing hired youth labor in agriculture. To review: Last year the Department of Labor proposed revising the hazardous occupations orders for youth working as hired labor in agriculture. As Solis stated in the foreword to the Blueprint document, “we are proposing some reasonable parameters on especially dangerous tasks that data show have killed or injured a disproportionate number of young workers.” The additional protections would have brought rules governing employment of youth in agriculture more in line with four decades-old amendments to The Fair Labor Standards Act which affords youth working in all other US industries a higher standard of protection. Teens employed in agriculture presently have nearly four times the risk of death on the job than teens in other industries.18 The comment period opened September 2, 2011, and elicited more than 18,000 responses. The proposal ignited a firestorm of opposition that prompted statements in agricultural and other media accusing the Obama Administration of attempting to kill off the family farm. Given that the changes focused on hired youth, support came most visibly from multiple sectors of public health, immigrant support groups, union sources and children’s injury prevention advocates. Opposition came most notably from farm groups and Congressional representatives from some heavily agricultural states. Several legislators threatened to pass laws blocking issuance of the new rules. The blowback led the Department of Labor to extend the standard 60-day comment period to 90 days. The department took the additional step on February 1, 2012, of announcing that it would, in an effort to “ensure protection of both children and rural values,” re-propose the portion of its regulation interpreting the “parental exemption,” which allows children of any age to perform any job on a farm owned or operated by their parent or a person

Journal of Agromedicine “Peer Reviewer of the Year” 2018: The Guest Editor Team, Socio-Ecological Model Dedicated Issue

Each year the Journal of Agromedicine recognizes a peer reviewer who exemplifies a commitment to assuring the high scholarly quality of what we publish. We consider thoroughness, scientific accuracy, clarity, respectfulness, guidance, constructiveness, and timeliness. In addition to the reviewer of the year, we select several reviewers who receive honorable mention for their reviewing prowess. Each recipient receives a certificate and our very sincere thanks. This year is no different in that we are using the same criteria, however, for the first time we are recognizing a team of reviewers. We are pleased to announce the guest editors of issue 22(4), dedicated to Socio-Ecological Approaches for Improving Agricultural Safety and Health, as our “Peer Reviewer of the Year, 2018.” We made our decision after considering a year’s worth of reviews. “The Journal of Agromedicine is fortunate to have reviewers and guest editors the caliber of this team,” said Journal Editor-in-Chief Matthew Keifer, MD, MPH. “They embody the qualities necessary to move forward a field of study.” The honorees:

“Peer Reviewer of the Year” 2017: Honorable Mention

Casper Bendixsen, PhD, National Farm Medicine Center. Dr. Bendixsen, a cultural anthropologist, is an Associate Research Scientist in the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation. He was the driving f...

National Farm Medicine Center Celebrates 10 Years Editing Journal of Agromedicine

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

Peer Reviewer of the Year

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

Raising the profile of worker safety: highlights of the 2013 North American Agricultural Safety Summit.

ABSTRACT The 2013 North American Agricultural Safety Summit, an unprecedented gathering of industry leaders and safety experts, was held September 25–27 in Minneapolis, MN. Hosted by the industry-led Agricultural Safety and Health Council of America (ASHCA), there were 250 attendees, 82 speakers, 76 abstracts with poster presentations, along with “best practices” videos, genius bars sessions, learning stations, exhibits, breakfast roundtable topics, and receptions. The event was a mix of knowledge, inspiration and networking to enable participants to influence the adoption of safety practices in their home/work settings. Given the agriculture industry’s commitment to feed nine billion people, the projected world population by 2050, it is imperative that producers and agribusiness strive to do it safely, humanely and sustainably. Evaluation feedback was very positive, indicating ASHCA’s original objectives for the Summit were achieved.

Journal of Agromedicine ‘Leader in the Field’ 2013: Art Kerschner Jr

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.