Childcare issues may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the profitability of a farming operation. But according to a new study by a Penn State researcher, childcare issues can negatively impact farming operations and the family that runs the farm.

The research — a collaboration between Florence Becot, Nationwide Insurance Early Career Professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State, and Shoshanah Inwood, assistant professor of community, food and economic development at The Ohio State University — focused on understanding how children and their needs impact the agricultural enterprise.

To assess the extent to which childcare arrangements, farmworkers, households, and farm enterprise characteristics interact, researchers designed, conducted, and analyzed responses from 729 U.S. farm families. They recently published their findings in Agriculture and human values.

“More than three-quarters of farming families with children under the age of 18 have experienced childcare issues, mainly due to cost and availability, meaning they often have to juggle multiple paid and unpaid childcare options,” Becot said.

“When child care in agriculture has been discussed before, it has most often been from a farm safety perspective, since children on farms are subject to higher rates of injury and death compared to children in the general population. However, the new study suggests that child care challenges often influence farm business decisions as well.”

In the survey, 78% of respondents made changes to balance the needs of children with the responsibilities of farming, which significantly affected farm productivity by reducing farm hours and changing work schedules. Respondents indicated that decisions about childcare also affected the structure of on- and off-farm work, including ceasing or reducing off-farm hours and hiring on-farm or home-based help. Providing and paying for childcare also affected the structure of the farm enterprise, requiring changes to production systems and marketing channels and influencing farm investment decisions.

These effects likely have short- and long-term consequences for the trajectory of the farm enterprise and household well-being, the researchers noted. Different decisions required trade-offs, which farm respondents indicated were shaped by access to support systems, access to financial resources, and the special needs of children.

Finally, the decisions facing many farms, the researchers report, point to the prevalence of farm parents who must continually adapt to high rates of childcare challenges and inadequate rural social safety nets. Farm parents are often forced to make difficult choices, Becot explained.

“If they cannot take their children to work with them or arrange for someone to look after them, do they reduce the amount of work they do on the farm, reducing the productivity of their business?” Becot asked.

“If family and friends are not available to help with child care, does the cost of child care reduce household spending and investment in the farm? Or do they give up off-farm work to have more time to care for children?”

However, as Becot notes, these non-farm jobs are often incredibly important because they provide access not only to an income but also to valuable health insurance.

“We might think that these decisions only have short-term effects, but that’s probably not the case,” she said. “If we think about farm investments, for example, there’s a cumulative effect over time of abandoned or delayed investments that could have helped expand the farm enterprise or make it more efficient.”

The study’s findings raise questions about how the agricultural sector has traditionally been supported, the researchers said. While it’s important to support farmers’ access to land, capital and new knowledge, the researchers said the study suggests it’s equally important to provide farm families with the resources they need to meet their social and economic needs, such as childcare.

“Access to and affordability of child care is a challenge across the country, but the implication is that child care not only impacts the success of farms for families, but also the availability of food for all,” Becot said. “This means that the ability of farm families to meet their socioeconomic needs must be systematically included in conversations about the future of our food system and its resilience.”

Previous research by Becot and Inwood has already informed the national conversation about child care. Since 2020, they have briefed senators and representatives and participated in congressional hearings, and shared their findings with farm organizations. Their work helped influence both the U.S. Farm Bureau and the National Farmers Union to add affordable rural child care to their priorities in the Farm Bill.

The 2018 Farm Bill, currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, which has been extended until September 30, includes the addition of child care under the Rural Development Program.