Talk of the West

Richard, my husband, is a late arrival into the cell phone age. Among his many reasons for refusing to use a cell phone were: they don’t float in irrigation ditches; there’s no reception on the ranch; he couldn’t hear on it; and the tiny keyboard didn’t fit his fingers. All that changed when iPhone 4s and Siri entered his life. He totally fell under her spell. Before I knew it, she was going everywhere with him as his personal assistant. But, even Siri has a learning curve. For example Richard took her with him to check on the cows the other day. When he spotted a sick cow who needed doctoring, he said: “Siri, make a note to doctor Green 2.15.” And, Siri dutifully wrote: Dr. Green 2:15.  Obviously, she’s a city girl who doesn’t  know about cow’s ear tag identification. Lucky for me, she too has a thing or two to learn about agriculture.

Along with a roomful of friends and neighbors, I attended the Agriculture Appreciation Days dinner sponsored by the Harlowton Chamber of Commerce. The speaker raised some issues and cited statistics that left us all disheartened. While there were plenty of boots under the table and cowboy hats on the rack at our dinner, we were told that less than 2% of Americans are engaged in agriculture production. This translates to fewer and fewer adults and children with any first-hand knowledge of where their food comes from or what it takes to produce it.

When the speaker told us about the The Department of Labor’s proposed regulations limiting the kinds of work children can do on farms, I became truly concerned. As proposed, any children under the age of 16—unless they live on an unincorporated family farm—can not work around livestock or operate any farm equipment.* While the Department describes these regulations on kids and agriculture in terms of safety, farmers and ranchers view them as an attack on the rural way of life.

The result—whether intended or unintended—would drastically alter a farmer’s ability to pass on his store of knowledge and passion for the farming/ranching lifestyle to the next generation. Under the guise of safety, the ‘hands on’ learning–so essential to becoming a farmer or rancher–would be taken out of the farmer’s hands. “We taught these children to be safe,” stated a farm wife and mother. “We taught them … how we did things on the farm, and we also instilled the passion for the farm. So the family farms are not dying, that we would continue to pass them on.” *

I left the meeting very worried about this misguided regulation. Will an over-zealous governmental concern for safety, coupled with a lack of understanding of farm culture, rob our children of the chance to fully experience farm life? Will our extended family be excluded from spending summers working at the ranch? My concern was underscored when the following email hit our ‘InBox’. It was sent by my husband’s ‘city cousin’, now in his seventies:

“Tonight I somehow was led to describe for Chris the root [cellar], across the alfalfa field from the Moe Ranch- a memory from my childhood. Then my first arrival on the train in the middle of the night, probably in 1945. The milking of the cows, the shearing of the sheep at the Vestal place in the mountains. Big breakfasts, I was forced to eat liver. Riding horses with a purpose. Fishing in the river. I googled. Amazingly here it is together with this beautiful picture of Audun and Carol and the Stone House itself. I am in tears, good tears..  J.”

The Moe Ranch, thankfully, is still intact and being operated by my husband, who learned the rudiments of his profession at his father (Audun’s) side. Soon, his son will take over, having learned in the same way. But what of the city cousins—the 98% who don’t live on a family farm? The experiences cited in the above email, plus many more, would no longer be allowed under the proposed regulations!

What a shame if a Wii farm simulation becomes the only way that our next generations can gain an understanding of agriculture and the rural way of life!

*For complete text, go to: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/28/144385356/proposed-child-labor-rules-could-alter-farm-life