Farm children safer, but die too often in accidents

Weichelt is among the researchers at the forefront of monitoring injuries and deaths among children related to farming and agriculture at the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety. The 2016 report from the center released in July shows that children on farms are much safer from nonfatal injuries today than they were 18 years ago, but not any safer from fatal ones. Every three days, a child dies in an agriculture-related incident, Weichelt said. Thousands of children younger than 20 are injured every year, with the majority of the injuries occurring in the Midwest, he said. "A farm can be littered with potential hazards," Weichelt said. While the number of deaths among children has averaged around 110 per year nationally for the past two decades, fewer kids are being injured on farms. In 1998, the number of injuries among youth per 1,000 farms was 16.6 and by 2014 the rate had dropped to 5.7, said Marsha Salzwedel, a colleague with Weichelt at the children's center, which is a branch of the National Farm Medicine Center