Children on farms pick up risky behaviors from parents, Canadian study confirms; U.S. experts say it applies here

Farm kids learn how to farm from their parents, grandparents and sometimes even great-grandparents. They may also learn risky behaviors that get passed from generation to generation, according to a Canadian study that U.S. researchers say applies south of the border.

The study in the Journal of Rural Health surveyed farmers Saskatchewan farmers. It concluded, "Occupational health and safety risks and protections experienced on farms appear to be transferred between generations. This suggests the need to target farm owner-operators, the responsible authority on the farm, as a focus of primary prevention strategies aimed at injury risks to children and young workers."

The researchers at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta wrote, "Family farms provide an opportunity to pass down traditions of hard work, valuable occupational skills and abilities, and family values. Some of these traditions, however, can have a negative side with respect to rural health. There is a quiet epidemic of traumatic farm injuries that are disproportionately experienced by farm children, which may be related to cultures of safety and risk-taking that are also passed down through generations."

Two leading farm-safety researchers in the U.S. told The Rural Blog that the study is valuable.

“This inquiry into the intergenerational aspects of farming practices is critical in broadening and deepening our understanding of how the social-cultural aspects of risk impact current and future generations of farmers,” said Casper Bendixsen, director of the National Farm Medicine Center at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in Marshfield, Wis. “While the study is based on Canadian farmers, the findings resonate with me as a U.S. researcher and as the son of farming and ranching. It also grounds what is theoretical, and sometimes mythical, into concrete, quantitative findings.”

Dennis J. Murphy, Nationwide Insurance Professor emeritus of agricultural safety and health at 

Penn State, wrote, “This research is innovative and very applicable to farm and ranch operations in the United States. I think agricultural safety and health researchers and educators have always thought along these lines but there is little, if any, direct research that supports these notions. Their suggestion that injury prevention strategies for the protection of children and young workers should target the responsible authority on the farm or ranch is certainly applicable throughout the U.S.”