Policies and Regulations Affecting the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Workforce - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 303

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Policies and Regulations Affecting the
Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Workforce
“The Congress hereby finds that the existence, in industries engaged in
commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, of labor condi-
tions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living
for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers . . .”
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 USC 201 et seq.)
PUBLIC POLICY AND REGULATORY ADVICE
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is uniquely
positioned to offer independent, scientifically founded assessments of the effective-
ness of public policy with respect to risk factors in workplace injury or illness. The
agriculture, forestry, and fishing (AFF) sector presents a distinctly difficult set of
circumstances for making such determinations. This appendix describes the legal
framework within which NIOSH research informs policy discourse in law and regu-
lation, then reviews and evaluates NIOSH contributions to policy and regulation,
and finally offers suggestions for new policy-oriented research initiatives.
The AFF sector differs markedly from most other industry sectors in which
fixed-worksite “brick and mortar” facilities are the norm. First, because the AFF sec-
tor is based on production from natural resources, there are millions of individual
worksites to consider: crop and livestock fields scattered throughout the nation,
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