Farm Product Prices and Agricultural Safety: Connections and Consequences: Rural Health Policy

Economic conditions in farming have been a common thread in explanations of agriculture's high rate of occupational injuries and death. If prices were higher or the farm economy were stronger, it is said, farmers could afford to be safer. However, could afford to be safer does not mean that farmers would be safer. This study examines the question of whether higher farm product prices could be expected to reduce agricultural injury rates. The critique includes a statistical model relating prices and acres per worker to non‐rollover fatal farm injuries, using national data from 1969 to 1987. Contrary to current arguments, the model shows that higher prices historically are associated with higher fatality rates, suggesting that increased prices serve as an incentive for working harder and that the state of the agricultural economy is not a good explanation for high injury rates.