By City Times staff

MARSHFIELD – One child dies about every three days in an agriculture-related incident, that’s according to the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, part of Marshfield Clinic Research Institute.

In addition, at least 33 children are seriously injured each day and 60 percent of household youth are not working when they are injured in an ag-related setting.

The leading source of death involved transportation – tractors, all-terrain vehicles, and contact with machinery – at 47 percent.

From 2001-15, nearly half of all fatal occupational injuries to employed youth occurred in an agricultural setting.

These statistics and other childhood agricultural injury information was released in the center’s 2020 Childhood Agricultural Injuries Fact Sheet, available at https://marshfieldresearch.org/Media/Default/NFMC/PDFs/ChildAgInjuryFactsheet2020.pdf.

“There is no central database on childhood agricultural injuries,” said Barbara Lee, Ph.D., director of the National Children’s Center. “In putting together this fact sheet we draw upon the best available data from a variety of sources.”

Source information may be found on the fact sheet.

The center said that it is likely that there are four times more injuries than the statistics reflect, with an estimated 88 percent of injuries “not captured by traditional surveillance methods.”

For information and resources to prevent child agricultural injuries, visit www.cultivatesafety.org.