Hazardous Agricultural Tasks Completed by Youth as Part of their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE): A Descriptive Study

This study describes tasks that middle school and high school youth, ages 13 to 18 years, completed during the 2015-2016 academic year as part of their supervised agricultural experience (SAE). The overarching goal was to collect information useful in directing classroom instruction to better prepare youth prior to engaging in agricultural tasks identified as hazardous by the U.S. Department of Labor. Using a list of eleven tasks currently identified as hazardous and 17 tasks proposed as hazardous, teachers were asked how many of their students engaged in each of the 28 tasks as part of their SAE. The 320 teachers from four U.S. geographic regions reported that students most frequently completed SAEs in the areas of livestock production (f = 6746, 26.6%), agricultural mechanics (f = 2695, 10.6%), home and/or community development (f = 2296, 9.0%), and crop production (f = 2250, 8.9%). Students often engaged in tasks associated with ATV/UTV operation (f = 7618, 10.3%), tractor operation (f = 5554, 7.5%), and assisting tractor operation (f = 5,081, 6.9%) as part of their SAE. All of these tasks are well documented in the literature as contributing to injuries and fatalities of both youth and adults.