Introduction - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 9

has typically employed proportionally more people 16-19 years old and 55 years old
and above than have other economic sectors (BLS, 2001a). Of the total workforce
in 2001, about 993,000 were 15 years old and younger and reported to be working
on U.S. farms and ranches (NIOSH, 2006b). The injury and occupational disease
experience of the agriculture workforce has varied with age, gender, cohort, and
calendar interval. Fatal injury rates are proportionately lower than in the other
two AFF sectors (see below), but nonfatal injuries occur in as many as 10 percent
of exposed workers (NIOSH, 2006a). Other nonfatal occupational hazards result
in eye injury, cumulative hearing loss, low-back and other musculoskeletal injury,
cumulative trauma disorders, some cancers, and respiratory disease. Most of those
conditions, excluding cancer, were known to occur among working agricultural
populations when Congress established the AFF Program in NIOSH.
Forestry Sector
The forestry sector has played a pivotal role in the economic, social, and cul-
tural development of the United States. It comprises an array of lands managed for
an evolving constellation of objectives: timber and other commodity production,
recreation, maintenance of wildlife habitat, water-quality protection, wilderness
and open-space preservation, and more recently as a buffer against climate change
and an effective carbon sink (Holmgren and Thuresson, 1998; Peterson et al.,
1999). The total U.S. forest land area has remained relatively unchanged since the
1920s (Peterson et al., 1999). Currently, about one-third of the nation's overall land
base, 737 million acres, is forested (Peterson et al., 1999). The federal government
controls about 35 percent (249 million acres) of all forest land, and about 10 mil-
lion private owners control over 60 percent of it (Rand, 1990; Garland, 2007). In
the East, most forested land is under state and private control; however the federal
government is the principal owner of forestland in the West (Powell et al., 1993).
The forestry workforce is composed of all who harvest forest and forest-related
products and those who provide other support services for the maintenance and
sustaining of the nation's forests. It includes owners and managers of forested
acreage, timber harvesters (loggers and fellers), caretakers (involved in silvicultural
activities and fire control), harvesters of non-wood forest products (such as nuts,
cones, other greenery, and mushrooms), transport drivers and road-building and
-maintenance crews, and others in support functions, such as machinery manu-
facturers, logging-rigging outlets, recreation managers and guides, and state and
federal natural resources employees. The size of the workforce has been estimated
to range from 88,000 to 202,000 workers (BLS, 2007b, 2008). This workforce has
been described as relatively isolated geographically and possessing a unique sub-
culture (Myers and Fosbroke, 1994; Garland, 2007). Historically, the workforce has