"When This Breaks Down, It's Black Gold": Race and Gender in Agricultural Health and Safety.

Farmers are growing older, and fewer new agriculturists are rising to take their place. Concurrently, women and minorities are entering agriculture at an increasing rate. These rates are particularly curious viewed in light of the racialized and gendered nature of agriculture. Slavery and agriculture share strong historical roots, with many male slaves performing agricultural labor. So then, why would African American women choose to engage in agriculture in any form? Participant observation and in-depth interviews with a group of African American women urban farmers in the southeastern United States were asked this question. Interviews with seven such women revealed their perception of self-sustainable small-scale agriculture as a departure from, not return to, slavery. The women drew metaphors between the Earth and femininity, believing their work to be uniquely feminine. Production of food for consumption and trade provides a source for community and healthy food amid urban poverty and the plight of food deserts. These data encourage agricultural health and safety professionals and researchers to tackle the health-promoting nature of such work, with the entrée of anthropology and other social sciences into the field. In many ways, these women portrayed small-scale food cultivation as an important component of, rather than a threat to, health and safety. Indeed, they viewed such labor as wholly health promoting. Their strong social connections provide a potential means for community-led dissemination of any relevant health and safety information.

Integrating Agricultural Injury Prevention with Rural Pediatrics: A Pilot Assessment.

BACKGROUND: Childhood agricultural injuries are an important public health problem. Pediatricians are a trusted source of expertise in children's health and safety and could serve as a sphere of influence to augment child agricultural injury prevention efforts. The purpose of this pilot study was to begin to explore the perspectives of pediatricians in a large rural health clinic about addressing child agricultural injury prevention within their practice. METHODS: Structured interviews were conducted with nine pediatricians who maintain a clinical practice of at least 2 days a week and care for newborns through adolescents. Detailed interviewer notes were reviewed and summarized. RESULTS: Rural pediatricians readily acknowledge substantial numbers of farm children in their practice. In general, these providers: (1) recognize farming environments as a safety risk and see agricultural injury prevention as an important topic to be addressed with their patients, (2) are comfortable discussing the topic, but seldom actually initiate such conversations, and (3) doubt farm parents would be receptive to integrating agricultural injury prevention into a rural pediatric practice. CONCLUSION: While rural pediatricians recognize child safety risks in farm environments, they are reluctant to actually initiate this conversation with parents. Future research should explore both pediatricians' hesitancy to discuss agricultural injury prevention and farm parents' readiness for integrating the topic into pediatric primary care visits. Such would help to assess the viability of pediatricians as a sphere of influence for augmenting child agricultural injury prevention efforts.