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The National Farm Medicine Center at the Marshfield Clinic Health System researches the causes of farm injuries and fatalities and provides education to rural communities both in Wisconsin and around the country. It’s also home to the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, one of 12 agricultural centers across the country funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH.
NIOSH is one of the federal health agencies that were demolished by mass firings under the Trump administration in April. The agency is expected to lose more than 90 percent of its staff.
The National Farm Medicine Center declined WPR’s interview request. But in a newsletter sent last month, director Casper Bendixsen said the cuts pose an “existential threat” to the program, which has relied on NIOSH funding and resources for decades.
“If these cuts hold, approximately three-quarters of the research and outreach carried out by the National Farm Medicine Center is at risk,” Bendixsen wrote in the email. “These potential losses threaten our communities on many fronts. Research, education and prevention of disease and injury in rural places cannot be ignored.”
John Shutske is an agricultural safety and health specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been a longtime collaborator with the center in Marshfield. He said farming is a dangerous occupation, and new health issues continue to emerge as farms change, from exposure to gas from manure pits to injury risks from new farm machinery. That’s why he’s concerned about the uncertain future of grants through NIOSH and similar agencies.
“Without the continued research that’s made possible with federal funding, it would set us back,” Shutske said. “We’ve seen over the last several decades a pretty dramatic decrease overall in our farm fatality rate. And while I think (the number of deaths) would probably plateau, I don’t think we would be able to continue to make the kind of progress that we’ve had.”
Shutske said the National Farm Medicine Center is a significant resource for Wisconsin, helping to study the leading causes of farm fatalities in the state. But he said the center is known nationally for its work to create a safer environment for children on farms.
The program first developed guidelines for age-appropriate farm jobs in the 1990s, and Shutske said they’ve been instrumental in helping rural families better understand a child’s limitations when pitching in around the farm.
“(Children) may be tall enough and strong enough and physically mature enough to operate some piece of equipment, but mentally and cognitively, from a decision-making perspective, they simply are not equipped,” he said. “That whole language piece, of talking about child development as it relates to farm safety, can really be traced back in its roots to the people in Marshfield.”
Mary Miller is a retired occupational health nurse practitioner for the state of Washington who spent her career focusing on protecting children in workplaces. She said the National Children’s Center is one of the only places in the country that focuses on protecting farm kids working for their parents or another family member.
“Historically, that’s been kind of the elephant in the room, frankly, that kids are allowed to do anything and everything on a so-called family farm,” she said.
Miller said researchers in Marshfield have been key leaders in getting guidance to farm parents even when regulations haven’t addressed the issue. She said losing that resource will put children and their families at risk.
Jerry Minor, chief of the Pittsville Fire Department in rural Wood County, said his department has worked with the National Farm Medicine Center since it opened in 1981 to develop guidance for fire departments to respond safely on farms.
“The type of call we get on a farm is usually a pretty high intensity type of call, you know entrapments, severe injuries, and we don’t go to those calls very often,” he said. “We’ve helped them develop programs on how to teach firefighters to enter silos and treat tractor rollovers.”
He said they’ve also created a training program for fire departments that want to proactively work with local farms on improving safety. Rural firefighters are trained to look for common hazards and to provide producers with information on how to safely store farm chemicals or what safety equipment is needed.
More than 170 first responders in 16 states and five Canadian provinces have gone through the training, according to the program’s website.
Minor said these programs are “vital” to both first responders and farm families. He’s worried there will be no one to continue the work if the center loses funding through NIOSH.
“I’m very fearful of what might happen,” he said. “I understand being fiscally responsible, but sometimes you’ve got to sit back and take a look at the bigger picture.”
This story was originally published by WPR.
Federal cuts threaten Wisconsin farm safety center for children, rural communities is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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