This week we're talking to Florence Becot about her work at the National Farm Medicine Center in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Florence and her team have been working to improve farm safety for families, including work on how access to quality childcare massively impacts the risks to children and adults on the farm. The Cultivate Safety website contains great information about how to balance safety with the realities of life on the farm.

Thank you for joining us today on Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, we encourage you to support us by becoming a patron. Go to Patreon to make a small monthly donation to help cover the cost of making a show. Please rate and review the podcast and follow the show so you never miss an episode.

 You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and on Twitter we are BarnyardPod. If you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group. We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch.

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Welcome to Barnyard Language.

We are Katie and Arlene and Iowa sheep farmer and an Ontario dairy

farmer with six kids, two husbands, and a whole lot of chaos between us.

So kick off your boots, reheat your coffee, and join us for

some barnyard language, honest.

Talk about running farms and raising

families.

In case your kids haven't already learned all the swears from being in the barn,

it might be a good idea to put on some headphones or turn down the volume.

While many of our guests are professionals, they

aren't your professionals.

If you need personalized advice, consult your people.

We are back for our final episode of Season two.

Katie, can you believe it?

I cannot.

Arlene, it seems like just yesterday that I was waiting with bated breath

to see if you would give in and agree to, to do this show with me, Arlene.

And as always, I am incredibly grateful that you did, because

A, there wouldn't have been an episode one, let alone a season two

if it had been up to me to do it.

And B two I, I don't know if I started with a or with one.

Yeah, there numbers, whatever.

This is why I needed a co-host, guys.

Uh, Nobody would've wanted to listen to it if it had just been me, because A, it

would've been terrible and disorganized, and B, we would not have gotten all

the great conversations that we've had.

So,

well, I have always appreciated from the very beginning that you asked

me to join and I'm glad that I said yes and same, same for AB and one and two,

because it definitely wouldn't have happened with just my skills either.

So it's amazing how our two skill sets, considering we only met each other once in

person and only really ever talked online, that our skill sets really combined so

well and have turned into something that we enjoy and we hope that you do too.

So before we go on summer vacation, Katie, what's happening on the farm?

What's new with the kids?

What's the news from

Iowa?

I feel like I should be yelling something like teamwork makes the dream work.

Arlene.

Yeah.

Or not.

Um, we're still a lot cooler than the rest of the country, but it is

hotter than hell here this week it's supposed to be over 90 every day for

like 12 days or something stupid.

Um, and in Iowa that means also like 300% humidity, upside.

The corn likes it, uh, nobody else does.

So that's a bit of a downer.

Um, other than that, the kids are kind of getting ready to go back to school.

Um, the.

Girl child has been referred back to speech therapy starting

again this fall, I guess.

Um, what?

Oh my God.

Once again, if anybody can figure out why Spotify keeps auto playing, um, about two

minutes into our intros, that'd be great.

'cause yeah, it was just playing a little c and c music factory.

'cause I've been pumping up the jams for the kids in the morning.

Um, yeah, so the girl child's going back to speech therapy.

We went to the dentist last week for their preschool checkups and I

tried to convince the dentist that we should get a discount because neither

of my kids has a mouthful of teeth.

Um, they're growing like weeds.

It's about time to buy new school clothes.

Uh, my daughter bought a toy called a Magic mixy.

Don't buy this thing for your kids.

It's evil.

It's like a, what is, it's, it's like a furby that comes in a

glass ball with a magic wand.

Yikes.

I don't know.

I'm, I'm pretty sure it's possessed.

Uh, one of the boy child's toys has started randomly making

engine noises and backup beeping noises in the middle of the night.

And there is an animal somewhere in my house making an unidentifiable noise.

I don't think it is a baby bat, but I don't know what it's.

And your Spotify just starts randomly too.

So all the noise are happening.

Noises are happening all the time.

And also my son learned from one of his little friends

to ask Alexa to play things.

No, Alexa, I'm not actually talking to you.

Um,

anyway, he keeps requesting that she, who shall not be named.

I can't hear it from my end, but obviously you can.

Well, that's

good because it was playing everybody dance now again.

Oh, perfect.

That that's the song.

Yes, yes.

Um, he has learned to ask her to play things, but he still has too much of a

baby voice for her to understand him.

So he yells at her until she randomly plays stuff.

Right.

And it's mostly been about not usually what he wants.

Yeah.

It was yesterday.

It was like 20 minutes of which animals fart, which was not what he was asking

for, but he thought it was hilarious.

So then we all had to listen to it.

Um, other than that, not a whole hell of a lot.

Um, it's quite the update.

Raccoon killing.

That's, that's the farm up at date.

I've been killing raccoons.

Um, yeah, they're going after your fellow.

I'll say.

Yeah.

I, I don't really believe in killing anything.

I don't intend to eat.

It is not the way I was raised.

Um, I.

But also I don't really appreciate having my birds killed, and especially

in the way that animals like raccoons tend to do it, it does not tend

to be a fast and humane situation.

So, um, that's, that, that's what's been happening at your place, Arlene?

Well, I had a birthday, so that was, you know, as an yay, yay.

As an adult, it's both like something you kind of look forward to and

it feels a bit anti-climatic.

But anyway, it was fine.

It was a birthday, I got presents.

It was great, and I got to go away on the weekend.

A friend of mine from University Days, she's in Australia, so a friend that I

actually went to visit a few years ago for my 40th birthday, she was back in

Canada with her husband and family to visit her parents and extended family.

So her home is about a five hour drive from here.

So another friend and I went to visit her there, since she had already made the

trek halfway around the world, we, you know, could travel within the province.

So we went to see her, just the two of us.

So that was.

Super relaxing because we got to just hang out as grownups and not

look after anyone else's food needs.

As three moms getting together, we spent an inordinate amount of time

talking about all the things that our kids will and won't eat and

how annoying it is to be constantly preparing food for little people who

will and won't eat what you prepare.

So at least we know that's a universal problem.

And farm wise, like I said, my daughter is uh, away for a little while at

a cow show and my husband is making a couple of trips there this week.

Both drop off a heifer attended, judging, judging conference

and then to watch the show.

So of course those events are spread out by a couple of days.

So he thought about spending most of the week there, but then thought better of it.

And he is gonna make a few trips back and forth, so he's

spending a lot of time driving.

I'm at home with the boys and milking cows and looking after stuff

here, so not a lot of excitement.

It's hot, it's stormy some of the time.

We're still spending a lot of time swimming.

I find that with older kids, when they were younger, I

was trying to fill the days.

Not that I'm not now, but you know, when they were little I

was going to a lot of playgrounds and playgroups, going to library

programs, all of that kind of stuff.

And it was kind of like, get everybody outta the house so we can tire them out.

Then maybe they'll have a nap, all that kind of stuff.

And now, It's not as much like that, and they all have chores to do.

So it's making sure that we're, even if we do go somewhere, making sure

that we're back in time for them to do their chores and for me to do mine.

And so it's just a different flow.

I'm not saying it's better or worse, but just different.

And I'm still kind of adjusting to that.

So yeah, summer, and while Katie's talking about back to school, we are

not even at the halfway point yet.

So I cannot even think yet about the fact that school will be

happening because there's still so much somewhere left to go.

We actually still have about another month until school starts back,

but the girl child is going to two weeks of summer school, which starts on Monday.

Sure.

So that gets us pretty much to when school starts.

Yeah.

That pretty much, pretty much is, I am very grateful that my

kids are still young enough that they're excited to go to school.

The boy child isn't, but he will be once he starts back.

Mm-hmm.

Hopefully.

But yeah, it's, it's going fast.

Yeah.

So the next five weeks after this week, we're gonna be doing reruns.

So if you haven't heard them before, lucky you, you get to,

uh, catch some of our favorites.

Not that we have favorites, they're like children, right?

We love all of us.

I have favorites.

Okay, we have some favorites and these are some classics that we're going back to.

So the next five Thursdays after this week are gonna be repeats.

And um, the episode this week, we're talking to someone about rural childcare

and she sent an update a little while ago about the fact that childcare has actually

made it into this year's farm bill.

So as a Canadian, I don't exactly know what that means, but Katie,

maybe you can tell people what they need to do about that.

Is that something that you can lobby about?

Should you people go and find that section and read it?

What do you need to know about

that?

Ideally you would read the whole thing, but I have the feeling that

it's probably a couple thousand pages.

Um, I think even among American farmers, it is not often known how

many things fall under the farm bill, like rural childcare, that seems like

it would be under some department other than the Department of Ag, but

nonetheless, yes, anyone you can lobby.

Um, even just being on the board of our local daycare and realizing.

How few even community members, let alone politicians have any

idea about the issues facing rural childcare centers and rural parents.

Um, lobby anyone.

You can just random strangers in the streets.

Stop 'em and tell 'em a few factoids.

Yeah.

Have you heard about childcare?

You know, as, as parents, plenty of people have stopped us to give us random

thoughts on how we're living our lives.

So I think it's really time that we go ahead and Sure.

Stop other people to give us, give them our thoughts on children.

There you go.

Yeah.

Well, we'll go ahead and listen to our interview with Florence because she has

a lot to say about rural child childcare and it was a really interesting chat.

So here she is.

Yes.

Today we are talking to Florence bcu, who is joining us from Central Wisconsin,

and she's a rural s sociologist, I'm not gonna say psychologist,

rural sociologist and researcher at the National Farm Medicine Center.

So Florence, we start each of our interviews with the same

question, and this is a way to introduce yourself to our listeners.

So we always ask, what are you growing?

So for farming gifts that covers crops and livestock, but can also use,

include families, careers, businesses, and all kinds of other stuff.

So Florence, what are

you growing?

Thanks, Dar.

Um, when there's no snow on the ground here in central Wisconsin, I do

garden, um, and I grow, uh, vegetables.

Um, but as far as my day job, uh, I grow data as a researcher.

Um, and the other thing too that I try to do with my research is to grow

spaces for people's lived experiences to be shared more broadly and spaces

for people to talk about solutions that could help address, um, their, you know,

whatever challenges they may be facing.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

What, um, what vegetables are your favorites to grow?

Um, I love to grow the kinds that, uh, are easy to maintain.

Potatoes.

Same is a great one.

Uh, until I move to Wisconsin, I could not grow potatoes.

For some reason I didn't have right soil, and now they do wonderfully.

Uh, I like to do tomatoes and I love green beans.

Uh, and I grow the, the thin beans, french style beans that I

have a hard time finding around.

Um, and they are so easy to freeze as well and weed them through the

year, so nothing fancy really.

Yeah.

But delicious.

And Florence, where did you grow up?

I grew up in the northwest part of France, um, in Brittany.

Um, you might, folks might have heard of Normandy, um, as

it pertains to World War ii.

And is your family involved in agriculture or is this,

uh, uh, new frontier for you?

It is not a new frontier for me.

Uh, both of my parents grew up on farms, um, and as far as I can tell our

entire family lineage up until to my parents was involved in agriculture.

Um, the fun story too, kind of small town stories that my mom's dad worked

on my, on the farm of my dad's parents.

Sorry, that's getting complicated.

My dad's parents had a largely larger farm that my mom's parents,

so my, um, my maternal grandfather worked on, um, My ERs grandparents,

sorry, this is getting complicated.

And then that's all right.

So while my parents, uh, did not, um, take over the farm, my uncle, one of

on both sides of my parents have had uncles who have, uh, taken the farm.

Um, we still have the farmhouse and farmland.

Um, and um, yeah, and so growing up, spent my weekends, holidays on

grandparents farms, um, family dinners, which in friends are usually hours long.

Think about Thanksgiving on a regular basis.

Um, we talked a lot about agriculture, um, and the thing too that talked a

lot about, I didn't realize until more recently, kind of wondering about why

am I so interested in those topics?

Talked a lot about ag policy.

I grew up at the time of, uh, U S S R falling.

Um, you know, I vividly remember when the, the Berlin Wall fell.

And at that time too, you have the whole development of the European Union, uh,

and the common agricultural policies with a lot of questions about what

they were going to do to agriculture.

And so there was a lot of angst around what are those common

agricultural policies going to do.

To farmers.

Um, and so my uncles could not stop talking about that.

Uh, and I remember us kids being like, oh man, we're so bored.

Yeah.

This again.

Yep.

So in the region of France that you're from, what kinds of farms are we talking

about in terms of sky size and what, what was produced on those farms?

Yeah, so, um, you know, it's, it's changed the way that

it has in the US and in Canada.

Um, the Bri Brittany has a good year round climate for vegetable.

Um, so you have a fair amount of, um, you know, the fresh veggies that you

will find in, in grocery stores, right?

A lot of cauliflowers, broccoli, I think not as much, um, potatoes as well.

Um, and a lot of it too around the coast line.

Uh, very good soils.

Um, a lot of, um, dairy as well.

Um, and, uh, hog hog farming and hog farming ga became

kind of bigger over time.

Um, and I think that there are more pigs than, uh, people

in the region of Brittany.

Um, as far as scale, you know, they're much smaller than

they are in the US and Canada.

Um, I, I think, think of maybe about a traditional Wisconsin farm, the way that

we tend to think about, that'd be more of the kind of scare that you've had.

But there has been a process of concentration consolidation, right?

As folks have retired, um, as there has been fewer farmers on the lands,

but they've also been more efficient, you know, covering more land.

Um, and in terms of the economy, I think that agriculture as well as food

processing or, you know, it's been a long time since I looked, but are one

of the leading industries in terms of dollars, um, for this region of France.

So very, very important to the region and a lot of pride in

agriculture and its history.

Sure.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what you're, where you're working

now at the National Farm Medicine Center, both kind of what the center does and how,

how you as an individual ended up there?

Yeah, so the National Farm Medicine Center, um, you know, was

started by physicians, um, in the sense that the National Farm Medicine Center

is based, um, at the Marshville Clinic health system, um, which has been

around the Marshfield Clinic health system has been around since the 1910s.

And I think, um, I, I might get in trouble with my colleagues, but I

think that the early research around farmers' lungs starting in the forties

or the fifties, I think, um, that is when, uh, ducks will see farmers

coming in, uh, with their lungs.

Um, you know, the, the consequences of like the, of

hay and bacteria, I think, or.

Again, I'm gonna get in trouble.

I need to read up on that.

But essentially, uh, the first research grant that was brought to

Marshfield was, uh, focused on the farm population, was to look at Farmer's Lung.

Then over the years, there was research done to look at cancer in agriculture.

Um, and then I think that the center was formerly funded in the 1980s, and

then in the 1990s there started to be more focus on children in agriculture

and exposures to risk of children.

Um, Dr.

Barb Lee, um, has been around since the 1980s, um, and she's, she's

been instrumental in creating the first national centers, um, to focus

on the safety of, um, of children.

And that center has been funded for over 25 years by C D C, national Institute

for Occupational Health and Safety.

And so I, over the years, the National for Medicine Center and the Children's Center

has gone, has gone from being a research center that was very grounded in, in

health and medical research to over time having more diversity of research with

engineering, uh, nursing, bioinformatics, anthropology, family studies, myself

as a rural sociologist, The way that I ended up there, it's a fun story.

Um, I was working my dissertation.

I was doing research, um, on, on childcare a little bit.

Health insurance was more my focus.

And I remember I was, um, you know, looking through what

research has been done previously.

And I find this report that looked at childcare for migrant farm workers.

Um, and I was like, who are these people?

And that report was from Marshfield.

And so I started reading up on them and, you know, it was my last year

I was going to need a job and I was reading up on them and I'm like,

these people are really interesting.

I wonder if they're hiring.

They were hiring.

And uh, and I've been there for over a three years now.

That's

so interesting because I think we really forget how different some

of the medical needs of farmers are just from things we're exposed to,

but also childcare and engineering and that we we're in a very different

industry than a lot of folks are.

You know, there's not many industries where your whole

family lives at your work.

You know, it's not a common, a common thing and it's definitely different.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

So we were reading a little about your research background, and one thing that

really jumped out was the quote that her research first considers the ways

in which difficulties meeting social needs such as healthcare, childcare,

or aging, expand beyond the confines of the personal sphere and can have

direct implications on the farm, including the adoption of farm safety

practices and farm business development.

Um, it sounds so much like what we talk about on a podcast, but normally

we're looking at just the family.

Um, can you expand on that and explain why moving beyond to that personal sphere

and into the community is so important?

Yeah.

Into the business and to the community?

Um, I think, you know, when we look at issues like childcare and

health insurance, um, we, we tend to see them as household level

issues, as personal issues, right?

And we, we don't talk about it.

Um, And, and I think too in agriculture, depends who you talk to, but we know

that in agriculture, as you were saying, Katie, the, the family is

oftentimes on the farm work site.

They oftentimes leave, you know, the, the, the, the farm.

The house is oftentimes on the farm where the farm business sits, not for everyone.

Right.

But we also know that one of the big reason why farms have been able

to persist over time and to stay on the land, even though it's a very,

um, unpredictable occupation, it's when there is a lot of changes.

Uh, one of the things that we know that help farms stay on the land is

because they share resources between the household and the farm business, right?

In terms of like, people split their time, uh, people are able

to, um, you know, work on the farm and not necessarily pay themselves.

Uh, and the same too with the money, right?

The, the money can be allocated to the household or the farm business

depending on, on how you look at it.

Right?

When we started, um, you know, and I need to give a lot of credit to my colleague

Osh Wood at the Ohio State University, who really is the one that brought

me into her research on these topics.

Um, really what she started hearing when she was talking with farmers was how

health insurance and in particular the cost of health insurance, which Arlene,

I'd be curious to hear about Canada, how it works, um, in the US there.

Um, when she asked the question, what are the top barriers to your farm business?

Um, they, she was doing a survey, I'm, I'm gonna backtrack a little bit.

This was like 2006, 2007.

She was doing a survey with colleagues.

They were looking at, uh, what enables farms to thrive and to stay on the land.

Um, and she asked, can we please ask, add an option about cost of health insurance?

So all they had was, you know, access to land, um, access to capital, uh,

farming knowledge, and she had to argue with her colleagues or very

strongly say, Hey, can we please add the cost of health insurance?

And they did.

Um, lo and behold, that came up as the top two or top three

challenge that farmers face.

And so that what, that kind of what started, um, you know, that line

of research, um, to, to really, you know, hearing, talking to farmers at

the kitchen table about what some of their challenges were around those

very hassle level issues, um, and how they're impacting the business.

And so, fast forward, you know, 10, 15 years later, um, we've been,

you know, we've been doing research together for the last eight years, I

think, um, we're really, when we ask farmers about, you know, what it's

like to, you know, how, you know, sorry, I'm not being very clear here.

Um, you know, kind of ask them, you know what, when we talk about health

insurance, we, we've heard over and over people saying it's too expensive

or, I need to have an off-farm job to pay for my health insurance or to

be able to access health insurance.

But what that means is it takes time away from my ability to work on the farm.

Uh, we've heard people say, I'm on purpose keeping my investment on the

farm lower so that my farming income stays below a particular threshold

so that I can be eligible for, uh, Medicaid, you know, public insurance

for the kids or for themselves.

We also heard from farmers who say, I'm waiting until 60, I'm 65

to get some of that stuff done.

And so really what we are hearing is the extent to which people

challenges with health insurance, childcare as well, um, have direct

implications on the farm business.

Um, and we know that farm businesses too, um, already

connected to the local economy.

Um, and when we talk too about health insurance and childcare, and

we talk about hiring folks, right?

Hiring farm workers, the, the ways in which people might not wanna take a job

if he doesn't offer health insurance.

Um, and so it, it's kind of how all these things are connected,

but that's somehow in farm policies we haven't been talking about.

It's almost like what belongs to the household.

We just don't talk about it when we talk about farming.

And our research really points to the fact that.

It's unfortunate, um, be because it's, and, and I'd be curious to hear from

you, Arlene and, and Katie around how these things impact your farm, right?

And, and how you have to navigate them and the kind of choices

that you end up having to make.

Um,

yeah.

I would say, I mean, as a, as a, this is a discussion that we've, Katie and I on

a personal level have had before, and, and I don't know what the statistics are.

I, it would be interesting to know, but I, anecdotally I can say that as

someone who lives in a country with socialized medicine, I, we are uninsured

in terms of, you know, extra, um, you know, medical expenses, the things

that someone, the type of of medical benefits that someone would give with

a, a full-time job, you know, dental, eye coverage, those types of things.

But we don't have to pay into a system, um, for our day-to-day expenses, right?

I mean, we can go to the doctor, we could go to the emergency room, any

of those types of things, we as a farm family don't have to worry about paying

anything extra for those services.

They're covered for us.

So I, I think, you know, on a anecdotal sense that it's definitely is a huge

impact for farm families because I, I know a lot of families who have the

opportunity, like my husband and I, where both members of the household,

both members of a partnership, can work full-time on the farm.

Yeah.

Because that's not something that we, that we have to, to pay extra for.

Mm-hmm.

It's, it's not something that we need, that we need to consider

or, or take into account.

And I, I think, Katie, on a, a personal level, that's one of the reasons that you

and your husband do have off-farm jobs is that, is that the healthcare aspect is

Yeah.

I mean, Jim, now it's the biggest piece, has been able to take a job that doesn't

offer healthcare, but only because my job offers very good healthcare.

Um, we'd be totally screwed if, you know, if I lost that source of healthcare.

And I know a lot of families who are in that position of if they make any more

income than they lose any, um, you know, they can't afford to better their lives

by getting better jobs or what have you, because the cost of the benefits that

they're getting, like insurance through the government is so much greater than

the extra income that they would bring in.

Or, you know, the, the cost of childcare is so high that the

extra income would not offset it.

Um, I know I was a stay at home parent for the first three and a

half years of our kids' lives because my income would not have covered

childcare, let alone anything else.

You know, I mean, I would've been working entirely to not be raising my children.

And that's, I.

It's a, it's a whole thing.

Yeah.

So, and I often think about one farmer that we talked to a few years

ago that was talking about kind of like the, the crazy gymnastics that, you

know, you just talked about Katie, right?

And she said like, the, the rational choice for my children, for my family is

the irrational choice for my business.

And that's so interesting, right?

Because we talk so much about we need to be rational and economic actors.

And so much of the farm business trainings are about helping people being rational

and make the best business decisions.

But in reality, once you start incorporating the needs of the

household, and I think it's, it's similar in other occupations, right?

When we start incorporating what we need on our day to day, uh, folks cannot make

those best rational economic decisions.

And so also what we know and what we've looked at is what are some

of the long-term consequences on the farm business, right?

Because early in the years, right?

Usually when people start a business or take over a business, right, that's

when they tend to start a family.

That's when folks or most vulnerable in their adult years as young adults, right?

They're just finishing school.

Or they might have been done from school for a year, but they might meet

a partner, they might get married, and then they might start having children.

And it's at the time that where your financial assets.

You have less of them, but there's also a lot of pressure because you

wanna grow your family that has a cost, but you wanna grow your business

or you need to pay to pay financial assets of the older generations.

Or you need to make sure you're paying enough into the farms so that the older

generations has enough retirement, um, you know, e enough financial access to

financial resources for whatever their, their needs might be in their data or

years elder care or who knows, right?

And, and it's what, what we've looked to in our research is how those

long-term consequences on, on the trajectory of the farm business.

And so when we have agencies like the US Department of Agriculture who has

had a lot of initiatives to support beginning farmers to recruit the next

generation of farmers, but they don't talk about these really important things.

And, and we've heard from farmers too, who, who people have given

up farming because they couldn't make it work for their families.

And so it's almost like, are we, are those investments not

as effective as they could be?

Because we're not talking about things that impacts the

day-to-day of people's lives.

So we're working on this.

Yeah.

So the ones bring up those issues.

Yeah.

So the one study that I was reading of yours where it talked

about childcare for farm families and, and so what's the title?

A key strategy to Keeping children safe yet largely absent from farm programming.

So who did you talk to about that in that study?

Because that's the kind of what you were already talking about is, is that there's,

there are all these programs that are supposed to be talking to farmers and yet

it's not talking about all the things that actually people need to, to know about.

So this was part of a five year projects that is funded

by C D C, national Institute for Occupational Safety and have through

the Children's Center in Marshfield.

The premise of that project was that for all these years, farm safety experts,

farm research points to the fact that the more children are in the farm work

site, the more they're exposed to risk.

And so they point to the importance of, in particular for

the youngest children, right.

The non, what we call the non-working bystanding children.

We're thinking, we're talking babies, toddlers, you know, um, the, it's

the importance of supervising them of the work site and that any kind

of supervision by an adult, right.

Or by, you know, a, a teenager, a responsible teenager.

Right.

It's paid unpaid.

It's, it's at the house with grandma.

It's a high school babysitter that comes over.

It's childcare center, it's school.

But, but the idea is like, if, if we, you know, the, the best way

to protect children is by limiting their time in the farm works at,

in particular, when folks are doing things that are dangerous, right?

Like maybe there's a lot of tractor work that needs to be done in the

barn, uh, or um, or around the barn.

That might not be the good time to have two, right?

But what we noticed is that as much as there's been recommendations, kind of

tying back to what we're just saying, there's been virtually zero research

on childcare for the farm population in the US but in other countries.

I have dug around in French, in English, those other, the languages that I speak,

no one's talking about it so little.

It talks about women in agriculture, but it talks about them as professionals.

It doesn't talk very much about them or very little as caregivers.

Um, and it doesn't really talk about what are people's lived realities.

And so this project was about, well, let's look at this.

Let's ask the question.

'cause the other thing too that I kept hearing, and it was either

implicit or explicit, is that farm parents did not wanna use childcare.

But I kept thinking kind of similar.

And, and I think the, the project on health insurance really put the big

bug in my ear because we often say, oh, farmers, they're tough crowd.

They don't want to go to the doctor.

But yet here we were talking to farmers who said, I go to the

doctor if it wasn't so expensive.

And so it was like, are are, are we keep, is there some kind of like always this

narrative that farmers don't want help or farmers don't wanna go to the doctor,

don't wanna use childcare, but have we really asked people what they wanna do?

And so that's what this project is about.

This study, Arlene, that you brought up was really kind of like to, to get a

sense of what's the lay of the length.

So before talking to farmers, we wanted to be what's out there in terms of

resources for farmers, if they were out and about looking for ideas on

how they juggle, um, children and farm work, if they were out looking for

ideas on how do I think through having children while growing my farm business?

Right.

And so what we did is two things.

We did, um, what's called environmental scan.

Essentially we went on the internet and we did keyword searches and

we looked at what's out there for people who want information about

children, childcare and farming.

Um, and then, and we looked through those documents and we looked

at what are they talking about?

And then we looked at the extent to which they're just like talking

about it superficially or are they actually providing direct

actionable recommendations, ideas, or are they not talking about it?

And the other thing too that we did is we did interviews.

Um, with what we call Kim informants.

So those are folks who are in professional set up to work

directly with farmers, right?

So we've talked to folks from farm organizations, we talked to folks

from Extension, we talked to folks from Federal and State Department of

Agriculture, and we essentially asked them, um, but how do you integrate

children in childcare into your work?

And we also asked them, what do you see farm parents do when it comes

to navigating children and the farm?

And so what, it was fascinating because on one hand, when I look at the documents,

when I look at how are children talked about childcare is not really talked

about, children is talked about, but more from the perspective of farms are

wonderful places to raise children.

And you have a lot of smiling families.

And I don't wanna take that away from people.

I think that this has been, um, you know, people really

enjoy having the kids around.

It's a source of enjoyment for many people at the same time, what we found is that

those documents, um, and it could be, you know, a, an extension pamphlet, it could

be the webpages of the farm organizations.

They only show the, the, the shiny part.

There is no part about here's what happens when the kid's gonna throw a tantrum

and here's what you know, and here's, you know, um, you know, a, a toddler

that has a lot of needs and is gonna interrupt you every other minute, right?

If not sooner.

And when we talk to folks too, What we heard was, it was, again,

fascinating, was well, we don't really do any programming around it.

And the reasons we're like, yeah, we don't hear about it.

It's not our job.

We haven't thought about it.

Farmers don't complain about it.

But then when we ask about, well, what do you see farm parents doing

and, and how is childcare for them?

They knew it was hard.

That that was like fascinating was so many of them.

And a lot of them also were farmers or from a farm background

would say like, yeah, it's really hard for the younger farmers.

Like, I don't envy them.

Or they talk about, um, how yeah, what I see the kids around a lot because

there's not really childcare in the area.

And so it was like what we found was like that disconnect of like, we know there is

a problem but we don't talk about it and then we don't really do anything about it.

And so as researchers what we do is we dug a little deeper and we're like,

why don't we doing anything about it?

And so we dug deeper in the sense that we looked at, we thought about

women historically in agriculture has been, have been invisible.

Right?

Or kind of like farm women, maybe they do the farm work but they're not necess

seen as a farmer in their own Right.

Right.

They're like the farmer's wife.

And we've also talked about how a society, we don't always talk about,

um, childcare or it's women's work, but also how's a society We rec,

we recognize some form of work.

As, um, being forms of work that we pay for that have a, a monetary value on it

and other forms of work like caregiving that doesn't have monetary value on it.

So we kind of started thinking about why is it that we don't talk about

this and is essentially is caregiving seen as women's work that they're, you

know, we haven't talked about it and we don't necessarily see it as a problem.

And talking about it could actually be pushing back against what we

see as the traditional family model of what it's like to have a farm.

Sorry, that was a long explanation, Arlene.

No, that's great.

Yeah, that's great.

And it's, it's true.

I mean, there's, there's so much of that, you know, not seeing the value

in childcare, both, you know, as a society, it doesn't feel like we

value childcare workers, but we also don't value the people who are, are

doing it for no pay, which is mm-hmm.

More often than not women.

But, you know, even if you're only, I say only in quote marks, even if you're only

looking after your own kids for no money.

You are providing a good to society and a, and a good to your family, but

there's, yeah, there's no economic value placed, placed on that work.

And it is work.

We know how much work that is.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And, and that part that you talked about, about only seeing the shiny parts, I

mean, exact That's exactly true too.

Right.

We only wanna talk about how good it is for kids to be raised on a farm, and

that's a huge piece of why we do this podcast, is because we acknowledge that

yes, we also believe this is a wonderful place to raise kids, but it's also, as

we all know, a dangerous place to raise kids and a hard place to raise kids.

And it's, and you know, there's, there's so many risks and it's, you know, their,

their presence on a work site, because that's what a farm is, is dangerous

for them and distracting for adults, and also dangerous for adults sometimes

if you're distracted by your kids.

And Yeah, it's, it's that cycle that nobody really wants to talk about.

I mean, we do talk about farm safety for kids, but Yeah.

But incorporating that piece of childcare is one of the solutions and mm-hmm.

I agree with you.

We, we can't say that people don't want it because they're not accessing

it, because if, if it's not provided accessible and available, then.

How can they access it?

Yeah.

How can they use it?

Right?

Yeah.

And, and people are using lots of informal care.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but, but same thing, right?

Grandma's maybe not getting paid or Yeah.

Grandpa isn't, or Yeah, they're, they're, they're going on a tractor maybe more

than they and their parents would like.

But that's, you know, the buddy seat for the, for those days is

gonna be the safest place, but yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's not, it's not the most productive and it's maybe not the

best for, for anyone, but it's the situation that, that they're in.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, I, I hear you.

And, and you know, to me, like I, I, I think a lot about

what happens here, right?

In the context of, of of other places that I know.

Right?

And it's not to say that one is better than another.

There is no perfect place.

Right.

We can always think that grass is greener on the other side.

There is always like patches of Brown anywhere that we go, right?

But often reflect about, you know, I grew up in France, which thing that I didn't

share too, um, is that my mom was a childcare provider for most of her career.

She had, um, a little, um, home-based center.

She would get, she was accredited through the government for the

quality certifications and France.

Usually it's like three, three to four kids.

And there, and there's like strict restrictions around like if you

have babies versus toddlers, right?

Um, And you know, a lot of, you know, I grew up in a rural

area, town of 3000 people.

We were, you know, nearby to a large metropolitan area, so you had

a fair amount of people commuting.

Right.

But over the years, I mean, she had children from farm families, um, and

you know, and so that idea that farmers don't wanna use childcare, I think

too, once we started talking to farm parents and we started with farm women.

So after we did that first phase of trying to see like,

what's the landscape out there?

What are, what is being said or not said about children and childcare and

agriculture, then we were like, alright, let, let's talk to farm parents.

The first thing that we did was focus groups and photovoice

activity with farm women.

And we really debated around this one a lot.

Do we include dads, moms?

Who do we talk to?

We decided to start with women raising children in agriculture.

Um, because we, we do know that as a society women still play a

primary role in raising children.

And when you do focus groups, which are those group discussions, you want

to make sure that people are gonna feel comfortable and are not going to

be alienated by too much difference.

And we were worried that if we introduce, um, you know, that if

we have moms and dads together, are there things that people are

not gonna feel comfortable saying?

We started with mom, with, with women, and it didn't have to be biological children.

We also need to talk to the, the, the men at some point, because

they also play a really important role that I think we underplay.

The reality is, you know, there's always budget restrictions

around what we do, right?

But anyways, to speak to the extent that people wanna talk about this, our goal

is to talk to 30 women in, uh, 30 women.

And we're like, you know, it's gonna take us five weeks to find

30 women willing to talk to us.

We were so wrong in five days.

We had 108 women sign up and we're like, whoa.

We were, we're like, this is awesome.

And like, we've clearly hit a nerve.

Um, and so with Shoshana, my collaborator, we went back and we're like, all

right, originally we were going to do these focus groups in person.

We were going to travel.

We're not doing that anymore because of Covid.

So, 'cause part of the focus group was we were going to give a financial incentive.

And so we wanna make sure that we could give it to everyone

and not just a few, right?

So we reshuffle things.

So in the end, we talked to over 70, 70 women, uh, over 13 focus groups.

Um, they were principally from Ohio, uh, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Those are the states where we start our study.

And um, I will tell you that almost every focus group I was

in tears at one point or another.

Um, it was heavy.

It was so heavy.

Um, because I think that what women talked about was how much they love.

Having their tuner around, but as you were seeing Katie and Arlene, it's also hard.

It's nerve wracking.

And the first question that we would ask was, you know, it, it's

a typical day in October, um, from the moment that the children get up

to the moment that they go to bed, where are they, what are they doing?

Who is with them?

And I will tell you that hearing women over 70 of them sharing that, uh,

it's exhausting because the amount of gymnastics that people are having

to do the amount of like what for two hours they're with my mom and

then my dad comes over and then picks them up and brings them over them.

I mean, somebody talks about like we're passing the baton and

so when we think about quality, what is quality childcare, right?

Or what's quality supervision?

Yeah.

Maybe they're on the farm with their families, but they're not

getting that much attention.

Uh, we talked about moms who were say, yeah, my kid just had to learn

to scream in a stroller and be in their shoulder for five hours.

And I think too, like, so as much as we heard people love having their kids

around, they also would not mind help and help can come in a lot of different ways.

Right?

But um, and what we heard too is that they are absolutely the people who will

never use childcare no matter what.

But I think they're a minority.

And I, I haven't done the math.

Exactly.

You know, I need to go back and look at how many times

these different things come up.

Right.

Most of the time we heard like, oh man, like if there was childcare that was

available, affordable, we will use it.

Because it's that idea that they're doing this very dangerous

jobs with little kids around.

So the level of stress that we heard from these women was through the roof.

Um, almost every group, one woman, at least one woman, talked about

being de like having been diagnosed, having a formative depression,

prepartum postpartum later on.

Um, women talked about having tried to find help, could not find it.

And so that's the other thing too, is in the US there has been a lot of

initiatives to support mental health.

And I think in Canada too, there's been a lot more discussion about mental

health and agriculture, but we tend to think of farmer as this, like, you

know, as older or as as men, right?

When you look at the pamphlets for mental health and stress stuff, it's

always, almost always a picture.

Of a man order.

Um, the picture of the mom with like three kids in tow, that never happens.

But men, that really needs to happen because we just did.

So in our last stage of the study, which just did a survey of foreign

parents, and here we asked anyone involved in raising children on

farms, so it could be biological foster parents, uh, grandparents.

Uh, we asked them, you know, fill out the survey.

So we ended up hearing from 860 people from all over the US and I think

that it's 40% of people said that in their household, someone has been,

has had pre or postpartum depression.

It feels huge and we, I don't think we talk about these things

when it seems like too, when we're talking about the farm business, even

if it's not a dangerous production part of the farm business, you know, we don't

ask ad executives in New York City to take three kids to the office with them

and expect them to get something done.

You know, it's, they would be, it's ridiculous, right?

Yeah.

You know, and it's, it's when we were doing farmer's market, you know, I had

so many people say, well, it's so great that you can bring your kids with you.

And I'm like, I, I love my kids more than anything, but they're not super helpful.

You know, I mean, they're, they're five and six, they wanna run,

run around in circles, you know, they're not helpful, really.

I mean, sometimes they are, but not by and large.

And, and then God forbid you get the people who say things like, well

just tell them not to do X, Y, and Z.

Like, you know, even if I'm fairly sure that they won't, I'm not willing

to literally stake their lives on their ability to remember that I told

them not to run out in a driveway when grandpa's driving tractors around.

You know?

Yeah.

I mean, it's, that's literally a life or death consequence.

I'm not gonna, I mean, I feel like I'm a pretty good parent, but I'm not going

to stake, you know, their lives on how solidly I've parented a five-year-old.

You know?

I mean, it's, it's ridiculous.

And yeah, I think I hadn't really considered it, but the, the far mental

health stuff we see is so much about older men talking about crop prices

being bad and not, you know, we can't access healthcare, or I have an

aging family member that I can't care for, or I have children that I can't

care for, or whatever else it is.

It's never about that other stress.

And to just address the.

The chemical parts of mental health care without addressing,

actually having support for families doesn't really do that much good.

Um, yeah,

and I don't wanna take away the fact that, you know, you know, folks in

agriculture right, need support and, and that the challenges are not real, right.

Of, of the older farmer struggling with the, the prices.

Like, I don't wanna take that away.

Like that's, that's real, right?

But at the same time, that scope of what we talk about needs to be much broader.

Um, and, and the differences in realities too along the life course that I was

talking with someone yesterday, she said, oh man, like when, when the children

were old enough to go to school, oh that was such a breath of fresh air because

they were out of my way for many hours.

And so we often talk about school as the place where people, you

know, where kids get educated.

It's also a form of childcare where you know that between this time and

this time, the kids are not around.

Uh, and we heard that over and over again, right?

How like the crazy jigsaw puzzles that people play and be like,

alright, like, between this time and this time, the kids are out.

So I'm gonna do like all these things and I've got my giant to-do list.

So people are like, you know, like going super fast through these things.

And then like from the safety perspective, right, is like, We know that from

the safety perspective need to take time and not rush through things.

'cause that tends to be when accidents happen.

But I think too, the thing that really puzzled me, and it's a tricky one

for me to talk about, because it, the, the, the farm safety programming

spends a lot of time telling people what to do and what not to do.

But again, like with the childcare piece, has never formally spent

time thinking about how childcare is expensive, is not there.

And so I think like telling parents don't bring your children to the work

site becomes tone deaf quickly when folks don't have other alternatives.

And it's like, well, what do you want me to do?

Um, and so I think there's that extra layer of like, yeah, I know

they're not supposed to be there.

Um, you know, when we asked if parents were concerned that their parents,

their kids could get hurt, I think it was, I don't remember the number.

I, I don't wanna misquote it, but it was quite high that you have a, a high

level of like the mental burden of knowing your kids could get hurt at any

time, but you don't know what to do.

You don't know what are other alternatives or what to do.

And I think too, to me, that was such a, it's such a large part

of doing this podcast is at least giving parents permission that.

No, maybe it's not ideal for your kid to watch as much TV as they do.

I know.

My kids watch a lot of tv.

We heard that, but, but it's safer than being out in the driveway, you know?

Yeah.

So, I mean, is it ideal?

No.

Is it safer?

Yes.

You know, so do that thing and hopefully we'll come up with some better

plan along the way, but, you know.

Yeah.

Um, so as someone with kids in rural childcare, and I was just,

um, doing little Googling here.

My kids are five and six, so they're, you know, in school.

But during the summer we're paying about 1200 to $1,400 a month for childcare.

And I mean, that's not out of line at all for what childcare runs.

A lot of centers around here have six to 12 month wait lists.

Um, I'm on the board for our daycare as well, and I can tell you that $1,400

a month for two kids is not anywhere close to breaking even for the center,

let alone actually making money.

And they're a community nonprofit, but they still can't afford to

just throw money out the door.

Um, but you still have to pay your staff and feed children and pay for insurance.

Um, the community we live in has a poverty rate of 43%.

So paying for childcare at a rate of $14,000 a year in a town where

the median family income is 56,000 is, um, not really working out.

I mean, it's what, like 28% of their annual income, and that's for two kids.

That's not for a bigger family or infants, which is more expensive.

Um, so how do we get people to understand on a, on a larger scale level that

childcare is not a family problem, that it is a community problem, and

that investing in kids being safe and growing up with early intervention

for things they might need with good community support with that, you know,

that good childcare can be such a benefit to families and to children.

But it's seen as such a like, well, if you can't afford daycare, that's

because you should get a better job.

You know, not, or you shouldn't have children.

Yeah.

Or you shouldn't have children.

Like, cool.

So there's this huge lack of young farmers, but don't have kids because

you won't be able to support them.

Yeah.

And, and Katie, I I will say too, it's, it's a business.

It's, it's a business issue.

And what we've seen in recent years, in particular since Covid, is how much more

the business community has gotten on board with the importance of childcare.

Um, just my county here, my rural county, um, they now have a childcare

task force and they released a survey to the business community to ask about

what are the needs you offer as benefit.

Um, I think it's, um, the, what I'm hearing is I think that we have reached

a point where in a lot of places we people already to do something about

it, but it's how do we go about it and the complexity of starting any

kind of childcare center given the economics that you just talked about.

So when we were doing the survey, um, earlier this year, um, we,

I would get emails from people, we said, Hey, I saw your survey.

I mean, rural Washington state and childcare is really a problem here.

And we've been trying to start a center here.

But we hit roadblocks after roadblocks.

And then through the survey too, was connected to a farmer in

Indiana, who about three years ago, his name is Adam Madison.

Um, got really tired of not good childcare options and he formed a

nonprofit organization with other folks.

Um, they worked really hard to find funding.

They partnered with the local, um, healthcare system.

Um, they went after grants and just in the last couple of months they opened

their childcare center, 70 spots.

Uh, they already have a wait list, but my sense is like, it, it was very hard.

Right?

And so in terms of what do we do about it, right?

What solutions do people wanna see?

I think it's the other part two, that not everybody wants, um,

a childcare center solutions.

And it's not, it's not realistic for a lot of rural communities

'cause we don't have enough children around, um, to maintain a childcare,

but like family based care, right?

Like where going to someone's house is a really good solution.

In particular when your work schedule is not reliable or you have long

working hours, you have varying needs.

Um, and I think Covid too has really impacted, um, childcare supply.

Um, it, it's hard and, and there are clearly people who've been working on

these issues for years, for decades.

Right?

Childcare advocates, uh, the bipartisan policy center, um, is a center you

might have heard of, uh, out of.

Um, DC that has done a lot of wonderful work on childcare for anyone, right?

Not just, um, farming.

Um, and it has done a lot of survey work to ask parents

like, really what's going on?

Um, and a, a lot of the time too, though, at the same time when we look at those

childcare advocacy groups, the rural, the, the, the specific needs of rural

communities might not have received as much attention and the specific needs

of farmers or anyone with, um, you know, self-employed folks, I will say hasn't

necessarily received a lot of attention.

And so I think that some of the solutions that have been pushed

forward, um, in particular around center-based care, there's been a lot

of push in recent years when wanna understand towards more quality, uh,

more quality gradings, um, which tends to be more of a center-based things.

And again, that doesn't work for a lot of things.

Uh, we've heard a lot of farm parents saying, I don't wanna send my kid to

daycare, but if I could have someone come help me at the farm, that would be easier

because this way I have the kids around and more so, like, we talk to people who

say, I would have to drive 40 minutes.

That's like so much of my day.

Um, as far as solutions though, I know that the show won't be aired for a

little bit, but this year is a firm bill year, um, and there's been conversations

around, uh, childcare for the farm sector.

The two largest organizations in the us, the American Farm Borough,

um, and the National Farmers Union have added childcare as a priority.

Affordable, accessible childcare is a priority in their policy

book for the farm Bureau.

And that's huge, right?

Because usually those policy books are all about the farm business, right?

Uh, what is crop insurance going to look like?

What are, you know, the pricing structures going to look like?

And so the fact that now there is that the childcare piece is very big, um,

the National Rural Health Association also released their letter, um, of

priorities for the Farm bureau that they sent to the ACT committee,

both in the Senate and in the House.

And they added childcare.

Um, and actually they, um, it, it was, I, I was able to talk to 'em.

They actually reached out to me and they said, we want to hear what we

can do to support the farm to support farm safety, farm health and safety.

And I showed up to the meeting with a list of five things.

They kept two.

I can remember it was one of those.

But anyways, I'm seeing that because there is a bill that is drafted, um,

that would look at using existing U S D A programs, um, and would target

them for both physical and social infrastructure, would target them, uh, to

childcare for childcare in rural areas.

It's not, it's a very small.

I, I don't, I don't wanna downplay it at all.

Right.

I think it will bring in infusion of resources, but will it fix the issue?

No, but it's a starting point in the sense that we're talking about it.

Yeah.

And talking, I mean, obviously is, is the first step.

And, and so much of that, I mean, I don't have to tell you, but to our

listeners, research is the basis of a lot of these conversations, right?

Until there's research, the type that you're doing, there's, there's

no way to, to justify and to prove, you know, that this is a

priority and that people need it.

So that's a huge piece of why your work is so important.

So you talked a bit about your current research.

Um, what are the, the next steps that you're working on and what yeah, what,

what are the next steps and what you come hope comes out of your work in the end.

I know it's probably one of those things that's just ongoing.

It roll rolls into the, the next questions, but where,

where are you going from here?

From here?

Oh man.

So this is just a small, it's not a small thing, but it's, you know, only

one of the projects I'm working on.

Mm-hmm.

Another project I'm working on, um, is looking at mental health and,

uh, what, what folks in agriculture do when they experience challenges,

um, mental health challenges.

Um, and it's both looking at, kind of going back to what we

were saying a little bit ago.

It's not only about people's decisions and what they choose to

do, but it's also the context in which they're making those decisions.

Um, it's about what does the community look like?

What does access to resources look like?

Because we can tell people all day long you need to get help, but if HAP is not

there, then you know, where are we going?

And so it's also about understanding how the, how the community influences

both mental health challenges as well as response to mental health

challenges and the community.

We're also talking about the, the economy, the farm economy, the local community.

What does access to healthcare look like?

What does access, what does the community look like, right?

What, what's the, what's the social fabric looks like?

Is that a community where people get together when

there is an issue of any kind?

Um, and so it's really moving beyond a lot of the research that has been done.

It's really focused on individuals and really about let's educate people, uh,

let's, um, tell them what to do and change their behavior and then flt the problem.

This project is really more about what are the big underlying structural

issues going on, and the extent to which we're addressing these

underlying structure solutions.

As far as the childcare project goes, um, we have a couple

of years left on the grant.

We have a lot, we are still working through, um, the data analysis.

We're about to release a research brief with the, the key findings.

Uh, from the findings and as far as establishing it as an issue, you're

right, Arlene, because until we have those numbers to really talk

about it, to really show there is a problem, I think it's, it's harder.

Right?

Some SNP pick about the survey findings is that 75% of the people

that we talked to, and that was 860 farmers across the country who have

at least one kid under 1875, about 75%, 74% to be precise, said that they

experienced a childcare challenge.

And those childcare challenges were defined as a matter of cost, availability,

um, distance to, um, childcare quality, as well as, um, philosophy.

Does your value align with those of your, of the caregiver?

75%.

74%?

Cost and access were the biggest issue.

Uh, when we asked about, you know, does, we had some questions about, you

know, how much are the children of the, in the workplace because of lack of

alternative options, um, that was over 50% said, yeah, the kids are with me

'cause I don't have other things to do.

And the last thing I said about I, I wanna say is around do people

want this to be talked about loudly and clearly When we asked, do you

believe that the U S D A and farm organizations should represent farmers

in national childcare policy discussion?

76% said yes to farm organizations being involved.

71% to Yes.

The u ss d a.

So if things weren't clear yet, yeah, now they are.

Yes,

exactly.

And what I want to say to, and don't, yeah, don't tell us that childcare's not

an issue that people care about because now we have the numbers to show you Yeah.

That people want to talk about childcare.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what was interesting too is about 60% of the people who responded are

multigenerational farmers, and the rest are first generational farmers.

And so we also talk to like a large, you know, um, these two groups that

have some important differences, um, when we look at other things.

Um, and then the last thing I'll say, when we asked about solutions, we had

a list of 1918 different solutions, and we had anything, we had kind of

very low hanging fruit to like very like big picture solutions we had.

Would you like more information about how to keep the kids safe

or how to assign duties safely?

Would you like more information about childcare options in your community?

Um, then would you like, um, Things directly connected to childcare, like,

um, child childcare tax credits, um, universal, um, you know, um, childcare,

uh, the way that K two 12 schools work.

So kind of like universal childcare.

Um, and then we had like affordable health insurance.

We had, um, financial assistance or we had support when people are pregnant or

about, or when the kids were just born.

So maternity leaves.

Um, and then we had what is, we have, uh, transportation.

So when we slice, when we look at the numbers, so guess what was number one

out of the ones I listed, I, I listed the one that's top and that's a survey

about childcare and asking what would make it easier for you to raise the

children on the farm and grow your business, or something like that.

Wasn't quite the question, but was healthcare

up there?

This is all Americans, right?

Yeah.

It was

77%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The u the us Yeah.

We can't look at in there.

77% said it had insurance, and we were not surprised because that came up

a lot in the focus groups last year.

But it, it, it goes back to the beginning of the conversation

on how it's all connected.

Things that are like information, those low hanging fruits kind of

towards the bottom of the pile, really what people, we saw a lot of.

Really what folks want is things that are actually gonna make things

better on a day-to-day basis.

So

how does rural childcare at the US compare to other countries

and what solutions are you seeing that communities are coming up with?

I'm gonna take notes for our own local, I'm on the board

of our community childcare and it's, it is damn frustrating.

You know, and I know that one issue we're really seeing is that there's, people

have been able to get better jobs, which is greater, you know, higher paying jobs,

but when you can start at the local gas station for $18 an hour with benefits, or

you can start at the local daycare at, you know, $14 an hour with no benefits, plus

you have to wipe snotty noses all day.

Um, not a lot of people wanna do that.

And I mean, understandably, but it's, uh, and there's, I'm really

hoping you have some genius suggestions from someplace for us when

I was an attorney to Arlene first, but I was gonna say they're not,

they are parallels with agriculture where we say there is a lot of challenges

finding recruiting labor to work on farms.

And again, when you look at, I think the pays is different, right?

There are some places where where the pays are higher, there are some commodities

that, that pay higher, but a lot of the time don't come with benefits.

Very long hours, hard work, hard physical work.

There are similarities too, in the sense that while you can go work,

McDonald's came, McDonald's and Target came up all the time when

I was work, talking to childcare.

Um, folks who work in the childcare sector, they're like, we can't

compete with McDonald's and Target.

Um, but um, yeah.

Arlene, what does Canada do?

Well, I'm also on the board of our, uh, local childcare agency.

And, um, the one program that our agency runs is licensed home childcare.

So like you were talking about, um, centers in people's homes.

Um, so there are also a lot of government programs that for subsidizing,

um, subsidizing on the individual level, so people who are low income

to subsidize their childcare rates as well as subsidizing programs.

Um, so there, there is money from, from the government that

goes into those programs and.

Across the country.

I know they're working on a national childcare strategy.

The, the goal is to have $10 a day childcare for children preschool age.

Um, so that's rolling out, it's not gonna be universal in the sense that, you know,

there just aren't there, there aren't the spaces, but, but it's happening.

It already has been happening in some places, but that requires a

lot, a lot of taxpayer dollars.

There's no, no way around that.

Um, universal, um, in our, in our jurisdiction, it's universal full day

kindergarten from age, well, it depends where, when your child's birthday is,

but junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten, so the year a child turns

four and the year a child, child turns five, um, there's full day everyday

kindergarten across the province.

Now that is good in a lot of ways, but the, the one thing that did

happen is that took a lot of early childhood educators out of private

daycares and childcare centers and move them into the education system.

Um, because they can make more, and I mean, these are

also trained professionals.

I mean, we want, especially in, in center-based care and in in home

care as well, we want people who are experienced in child development and,

and how to look after children in the best way to interact with them,

to educate them, all those things.

And that's, that's, that takes skill and training and education for the,

for the people doing that work.

So, so, Our kindergarten programs are run by both a teacher and an early childhood

education educator in the classroom together for those JK and SSK years.

So those are some of the, the Canadian things.

I mean, there's still lots of gaps, um, in rural areas in in particular, but

I do feel like licensed home childcare is a, is a great way to, to offer care

in places and also provide economic opportunities for people who don't have

other options, who want to be able to keep their own kids at home potentially.

I mean, you can, you have to count your own kids towards your ratios,

but, um, you can, you can stay home with your own children and, and take

a couple more kids in and that could supplement, supplement your income.

It's something that someone could do on farm, you know, like with

the proper safety protocols.

You have to have fenced yards and all of that kind of stuff.

But it's things that people could, could bring more income into

the, into the family in a rural area and not have to leave home.

So those are some of the ways that, that it's happening here.

Arlene, I'm gonna interject it.

It seems like there's such a parallel to between childcare and farming being

undervalued that it's, you know mm-hmm.

Because they've both been sort of silent work that somebody else did, and then

the benefits show up somewhere else.

Mm-hmm.

You know that honestly, as a parent, I don't want.

The center, my kids go to employing people who'd rather be working at McDonald's.

I want them employing people who are passionate and excited and are

getting education and want to be there.

Mm-hmm.

You know, don't, 'cause they are teachers, just 'cause they're looking after

babies doesn't mean they're not Yeah.

They're not still teachers.

Mm-hmm.

I am astounded at the stuff my kids have learned at daycare and other

than, uh, the drawing of the pooping mermaid that my kid brought home the

other day and I, she didn't learn, she didn't learn it from the daycare stat.

Was it a good drawing though?

I mean, another child, it was a great drawing.

Yeah.

See, she still learn, but she has learned at daycare.

There you go.

And, you know, my kids loved daycare and they love preschool, which is

also run by our daycare center.

And they're learning so much and they're getting to be such members

of the community and there is no value high enough to place on that.

And so I think we really have to change the whole way we discuss it because if

your children aren't the top priority in the community, and I mean for the

whole community, not just for the parents, but they should be the highest

priority and that's they're the future.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, I.

You know that that question of how do countries do it is, is

one of my research interest.

Um, some of my dissertation research actually looked at social policies

for France, in France and in the US for the agricultural sector and the

ways in which social policy has been tailored or not tailored for the

particular needs of the pharma sector.

Um, France was a, a very easy choice in the sense that I grew up there, but

France stands out as a country, it's not the only one, but stands out as a

country that, uh, from very early on, uh, you know, in the 19th, 20th century

as it was developing its social safety nets, really work to adapt it to the

specific needs of the farm sector.

And, and it does so with other occupational groups and saying that, um,

the idea is that we want, as a society, we want people that have access to,

um, we want a system that's equitable.

So that might not be equal 'cause that might not make sense.

So in terms of family benefits, what does that look like in France?

Um, if you are going to have a baby or adopt a baby, um, you

are eligible for parent to leave.

Um, and over the years too, it's moved from.

Being for women only to being also for the dad.

Um, and other, you know, and it's very similar models in, in other countries

like Nordic, Nordic, European countries, um, Spain, uh, but essentially for

the farm sector, what it says is that, well, if you have a farm, um,

the animals still need to be fed.

Even if you are, you know, gonna have, you know, a baby.

Uh, the crops still need to be tended.

Like you cannot put your business on hold.

Maybe some people kind can, but most people cannot put

their farm business on hold.

So instead of getting, um, you know, paid, you know, if, if you are a

salaried worker, what you'll get, um, you will get your, um, you know,

your, your salary paid for as your maternity leave or paternity leave.

What it does in France is for the, the farm sector, um, it pays

for a temp farmer, essentially.

It's like, or think of it as a substitute teacher model.

And at the national level, Finland also has an interesting model as a,

at a national model at the national.

National level.

You have different, each region I guess has their own system, but it's

connected to the national model.

Um, and they have this system of people or of a pool of people who are

experienced working in agriculture.

So that could be retired farmers.

That could be farmers who have a small farm, that they have extra

time to work on other farms.

Um, that can also be students, um, who are, um, in ag, ag colleges and ag

technical schools who want to operate, um, their own farm at some point.

Um, and essentially what it does is those folks, um, could work on

the farm for a while, um, so that, you know, the, the parents can

have time to be with the children.

A a lot of the family benefits too.

I think Arlene, you talked about it a little bit or, or long enough to, so

that, you know, even in the US even if you, um, are eligible for, uh,

F L M A A, um, f Ss l m a, sorry, I never remember the, the family leave.

Um, it's very short and it's not paid.

And you, you have to take, you know, use p t o.

Um, and also the, the big difference too in France is kindergarten starts two and

a half or three years old, so it's much sooner than the US so you also have access

to that day long or half day, um, school.

Um, and as far as childcare, um, It's a lot of, um, different options.

Um, center care, but also family based care is really important.

That's what my mom did.

Um, and parents get financial support, um, to pay for it.

Um, I don't think that care that childcare providers and friends

are getting rich, um, by any means.

It's not an occupation that pays a whole lot.

But I do think, you know, thinking about my own experience, you know, and

my mom, uh, she, it, it also didn't feel like she was way underpaid.

Um, but the idea too is we know that parents cannot pay

the full cost of childcare.

Um, you know, it, it is that weird thing, right?

And as a society, um, France is one of those countries that has decided that

ensuring that children are well educated, well taken care of is a priority.

Um, and so resources are made available.

And again, not a perfect model.

Um, are the taxes higher, uh, actually compared the rates in the

US and France, uh, for payroll taxes?

Is it higher?

Yes, but not that much higher.

And when you start thinking about what people get for the taxes that they

pay versus what we pay here with our taxes and all the extra stuff that

we have to pay, I would wager it's really similar what we end up paying.

Um, but the level of, but we don't get the same thing.

Yeah.

I've always found it interesting too, that we have decided at some

point that school is a public access.

It's a public good.

We don't have to pay for that, but early childhood education we do.

And what the, I know there's probably, I'm sure there's a lot of historical

context around, you know, women's work and women supposed to staying home,

supposed to stay home and look after their kids, and all of those types of things.

But the, the ways in which we have decided that school is, is a public good,

but early childhood education is not.

And I'm sure there's lots of, lots of context there that we don't

actually need to get into today.

But it's a, it's an interesting, interesting place that, that everyone

seems to be kind of trying to figure out.

And it's a longstanding issue right back.

So it's back in the 1980s, um, the U S D A did a research project

with women in Agriculture and asked them what they wanted.

Um, childcare support with childcare was something that

came up back in the eighties.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Still not here.

So, you know, co covid is not, you know, I, I feel like there's been a lot of

like, oh, like this is new with Covid.

It's like, no, it is not that.

This has been, uh, you know, when Shoshana started working on that research, that

was way before Covid when we proposed the project that I talked about today.

That was before Covid.

Um, because the problems were, have been around for a long time and really,

and, and you know, from, like, from a researcher perspective, right?

Or when, when any of us reflects right.

On our life and what kind of impact, if any, have we had and has it

been positive and, and are we, um, living, um, are we going to live

earth in, in a better place, right?

Because of the work that we've done.

You know, as a researcher it's really, really hard, right?

Because in particular, if you look at social and economic issues, um, a

lot of the time they require, um, a, a, a lot of the time, one effective

way to fix them is through policy.

Um, and, and policy can take yours, right?

And so I think from that perspective, I, I was, um, Hearing someone saying,

you know, this is an ultra marathon.

It's not even a marathon of

like Yeah.

One, one step at a time.

Right.

Um, one of the statistics that I found in some of your research that was really

scary and you know, sobering, was that every day in the US about 33 children are

injured and that every three days a child dies in an agricultural related accident.

And that 60% of ag related injuries are sustained by the children.

You talked about the, the non-working children, you know, like our, our

youngest and most of vulnerable.

So I know that as parents we are probably always thinking about the dangers on

farm, but you can you talk about what some of the, the major risk factors are, you

know, obviously supervision being, being a big one, but, um, can you talk about

some of the, the most critical points that we should kind of think about more?

I mean, I don't wanna add more stress to people's lives because I feel

like we're always, always thinking about those things, but Yeah.

You know, on a statistical sense, what, what are the things that

we need to be most conscious of?

Yeah.

Tractor.

Tractor is a big, big one as well as ETVs.

Um, and even buddy seats and, and, and what I'm gonna give you talk

about now is the, is the more like.

You know, like the, the, the recommendations by farm safety

experts and, and what the research says that I think is a bit separate

from the reality of what happens and what people can do, right?

Yeah.

Body seats are not made for children.

Body seats are to teach someone how to drive the tractor, from what I understand.

Um, even with a cab, um, tractors are not seen as a safe place

because you have vibrations.

Uh, you might have a door that gets opened by accident or, you know, the, the, you

know, whoever's driving the tractor might need to hop off to do something, get

back in, you know, who knows what the kids, um, might do when that happens.

Um, and even, and the reality is in our research, you know, when we did the

photo voice and we asked, uh, women to, to take pictures of what they do during

the workday to keep the children safe, uh, we saw a lot of, um, baby seats.

Uh, we saw a lot of, uh, different contractions and, and people are trying

hard, you know, they are, they're doing their best with what they have.

Um, we've also worked, heard that sometimes being in the cab, and

I think Arlene, you, you alluded to that being in the cab might

be the safest place considering what's going around the tractor.

Um, as far as risks, dangerous, large animals, um, are

also a big source of risk.

Um, any kind of lagoon, any kind of hole that has any kind of liquid where

people can drown, um, I think it's also a major, um, source of risk.

Um, and there is also, I think, not as big of a risk, but also, you

know, any kinds of, um, chemicals that might be around the farm that

needs to be, you know, tightened up.

Um, but even, you know, sometimes what we heard sometimes from, um, farmers

who farm, um, so we heard a lot from dairy farmers, large scale row crop

where obviously you have, you know, cows and, and tractors and implements.

But we also heard from farmers who appear at maybe smaller

scale, uh, vegetable farms.

Um, and one thing that struck with me and, and I think like there's the

sense of like, these are safer, but one thing that struck to me is this

mom who said I had funny brought my kid for the first time in the greenhouse.

He was a toddler who walked around within two minutes, or not even a

minute, he had filmed this sharp stuff.

Um, and I think it was like a hand tool or something.

And so, um, the other thing too is we know that on some of those smaller farms in

particular, when people are first starting off, they might buy older tractors.

So they might not have the P T O, um, but they also might

not have other safety features.

Um, and you know, a lot of the reasons why folks might buy these tractors is

because it's better the size of the tractor is better suited for the scale

of the operation, but also it's better suited for their budget, but then it

doesn't have the extra safety features.

Um, and so.

It, it, it's the tricky part, right?

Because at the same time, if you don't have childcare, I, I think one thing we

haven't talked about too is traditionally there's this idea that in agriculture, um,

it, it takes a village to raise children.

Right?

That, that's something that is commonly said in agriculture and outside.

Um, we've heard from folks, uh, from many folks who have a wonderful

village to help them who have parents, grandparents, neighbors,

friends, um, who are there to help.

We've heard folks who don't have that support.

Uh, we heard folks who said that, um, they were really hoping that

their mom will help with childcare, uh, but they're still working.

They need to work or they have a health condition that make

it, that they can't do it.

We heard from countless women that would talk about how they don't trust

their father and all or their fathers because they felt that they were very

unsafe and that they would do things that they're not comfortable with.

Right.

Um, and we also heard from folks that are first generation farmers

who moved to a new area to buy land.

Um, and then they don't have family to have them.

And so it's also like that idea of like, oh, you know, people have,

you know, family to have them.

Not everyone, not everyone trusts their family.

Um, families can have a lot of drama associated to it, and it might be very

uncomfortable to, to talk about it.

Um, it's.

There's a stigma too around it.

Right?

And so I think childcare from the perspective is that's the,

it it's also why it's important to have alternative solutions.

Because not everyone, I mean we, um, it's a story, it's a story that

Shoshana heard from a women years ago who said that, um, the, the, her

kid had, she comes back to the house.

The, the kid had been with her mom.

She came to realize that her mom hadn't changed the diaper in six hours and came

to realize that her mom had a resign.

Um, but also that she don't have other choice, but that having her

mom continue to look after her.

And so there is like, also like, sure there is family around, but are they

able or willing, I mean, the other thing too is we heard of, um, women

who would say, my parents want to have nothing to do with the kids.

They spend their entire career working really hard.

They raise their own kids and now they want to go, uh, they wanna be snowbirds.

Um, and they don't wanna have to do anything with the kids, or they don't

wanna be the primary caregivers.

And so it's also like kind of the idea that there's like all

these different things going on that we often don't talk about.

Um, a lot of people don't wanna admit it, right?

Because it's, it's kind of looked down upon, um, because we're expected

to have these great families where everyone is there to have each other.

Yeah.

It's so true.

And it's a, it's again, expecting that free labor out of.

I mean, primarily women.

Yeah.

Even into their senior years, that we would expect grandmothers to just

willingly continue to give and give and give and take care of young children

more than full time for no pay.

Right.

You know what, why is this an expectation or, or a, uh, that we,

that we hold this up as a virtue even that, that this is something that,

that is, is the best for everyone.

You know, who is it best for?

Probably nobody.

I mean, if, if grandma would like to take care of the children, that's fantastic.

But, but yeah.

That expectation that this is, this is how it should be, or that this is,

this is the best, the best scenario.