By Brandon Smith bsmith@nebraska.tv
"It would be deviating to farm community's like ours," said Dean Leuhr, a farmer from Wood River.
That's how farmers and ranchers like Dean feel about a proposed rewrite from the Department of Labor prohibiting teens under 16 from performing farm duties in exchange for safety.
"If you talk to any farmer or rancher they will tell you that the safety of their children and young people that work for them is number one concern." said Jordan Dux, of Nebraska Farm Bureau.
"It's really going to put a damper on the ability for farm kids to learn the
process of farming," said Luehr.
Some of those restrictions would only allow kids of the parent owned farm
to perform certain task, can't stack bales of hay over six feet, care for livestock, and operating
almost most all power equipment.
"Taking that away is going to destroy the next generation of farmers because they
are a lot of kids that get interested in farming, because they work around the farm and got that experience," said Luehr.
"The rule does not take into account a lot of the way Ag operations farmers and
ranchers are structured a lot of the things youth can do on a farm are quite restrictive," said Dux.
November 1st is the deadline the Labor Department has giving to farmers organizations
to express their opinions. They look to gain enough support to get a sixty day extension to talk
more about the details in the proposal.
The farm community is also upset of the time frame of these new guidelines, because it came at their busiest time during the year. Repeated efforts to contact the department of labor for comment were not returned.
