Millions of adolescents in this country work to earn spending money, gain responsibility and independence, help their parents financially, or enhance their educational experience. Although these children work in all different industries, those working in agriculture as migrant or seasonal workers (those constantly on the move to stay employed or those who are only able to find intermittent employment) or whose parents work as migrant and seasonal workers may face economic, social, and educational challenges that distinguish them from children working in other industries. Over the years, commissions, farmworker advocates, and policymakers have commented on the conditions of hired agricultural workers. Although the exact number of workers in agriculture is difficult to estimate, the Commission on Agricultural Workers in 1992 reported that the United States had about 2.5 million hired agricultural workers. Other sources report that the majority of hired agricultural workers work in producing crops, such as fruits and vegetables, and in horticulture. Even though defining agriculture is difficult, it is generally acknowledged to be a high-hazard industry; in 1995, the incidence rate (the number of injuries and illnesses for every 100 workers) for agriculture was 9.7, higher than private industry’s in general (8.1), and third in severity behind manufacturing (11.6) and construction (10.6). Many federal and state agencies are responsible for enforcing laws that protect workers—including children—in agriculture. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law that establishes child labor and other labor standards (for example, the minimum wage) governing employers engaged in interstate commerce. WHD is also responsible for enforcing the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA), which governs housing, transportation, and other work conditions for agricultural workers. In addition, state labor departments are responsible for enforcing their own child labor and other laws that apply to children and others working in agriculture. Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—along with its state counterparts—is generally responsible for enforcing safety and health standards for workers of all ages in all industries, although in 1997 Labor transferred some of OSHA’s authority over agricultural employers’ provision of temporary housing and field sanitation to WHD. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies, under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), are responsible for protecting agricultural workers from pesticide exposure.EPA’s Worker Protection Standard, enforced by state agencies under the guidance of EPA, provides for various risk-reduction practices that cover all pesticide handlers and workers involved in cultivating and harvesting crops. This standard requires employers to follow instructions on pesticide labels that specify periods of restricted entry into fields after pesticides have been applied and the use of personal protective equipment by pesticide handlers when applying pesticides or for workers who must enter treated fields before the restricted entry time has expired.Employers must also provide other services, such as basic training on pesticide hazards, information about pesticides that have been applied, and emergency assistance for treating a worker’s illness or injury. All agricultural employers, regardless of the size of their establishment, are required to provide these protective measures to their agricultural workers. Children are not distinguished from other workers. The standard largely excludes others who may be living on the farm premises who are not workers (such as family members of farm owners) or children of hired farmworkers who may be in the fields with their parents while the parents are working. Labor and the Department of Education also oversee billions of dollars in federal aid that helps educationally and economically disadvantaged children—which includes migrant and seasonal children in agriculture. While the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has no enforcement authority over agricultural employers for labor or safety and health laws that affect children or other workers, it does oversee the collection of information about selected farm characteristics such as cultivated acreage and dollar sales. In addition, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), conducts independent research on work place safety and health issues. As we and others have noted in the past, federal wage and safety and health protections are typically less stringent for agricultural workers—of all ages—compared with those for workers in other industries and, in general, agricultural workers receive lower hourly wages than workers in many other industries. FLSA exempts small agricultural employers (defined as those employers who did not use more than 500 days of agricultural labor, which equals about seven full-time workers, in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar year) from paying the minimum wage to their employees. In addition, agricultural employers of all sizes are not required by FLSA to pay their workers overtime. Agricultural employers are also exempt from most safety and health standards enforced by OSHA, and OSHA is prohibited by an appropriations rider from conducting inspections on certain small agricultural employers (those who employ 10 or fewer workers and provide no temporary housing for those workers), even if it receives a complaint about unsatisfactory working conditions from a worker or if a worker is fatally injured. In other industries, an OSHA inspector must respond to a complaint and investigate work place fatalities. Several recent initiatives specifically address conditions affecting children. Executive Order 13045, for example, created a high-level task force composed of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Education, and Labor and the Administrator of EPA, among others. The task force is responsible for recommending actions to the President to reduce risks to children. In addition, in documents prepared in compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act), Labor’s WHD introduced a 5-year enforcement effort targeted toward employers producing particular agricultural commodities with an emphasis on detecting violations of child labor law. EPA highlighted as a guiding principle its efforts to identify and assess environmental health risks, such as pesticides, that may affect children disproportionately and pledged to develop six centers to do such research. Finally, Education reported that its goal is to help all children meet challenging academic standards to prepare them for responsible citizenship and further learning—as measured through improved high school attendance and graduation rates—particularly for those students at the greatest risk of school failure, such as children in migrant and seasonal agriculture. In 1998, the President also announced a national Child Labor Initiative to fight abusive child labor and enhance educational opportunities for children working in agriculture as migrant and seasonal workers. In response to this initiative, Labor’s WHD requested an additional $4 million in its fiscal year 1999 budget to increase the enforcement resources dedicated to detecting child labor violations in agriculture. Labor has also requested $5 million to develop a pilot program that would provide educational alternatives for migrant and seasonal agricultural child workers so they would stay in school. In its budget request, Education sought an additional $50 million for its Migrant Education Program (MEP) that would allow it to serve 70,000 to 100,000 more migrant children. We were asked to (1) determine, given the data available, the extent and prevalence of children (defined as anyone under 18) working in agriculture, including their injuries and fatalities; (2) describe and analyze the federal legislative protections and those in selected states for children working in agriculture; (3) assess the enforcement of these laws as they apply to children working in agriculture; and (4) identify federal educational assistance programs and describe how they address the needs of children in migrant and seasonal agriculture, focusing on those aged 14 to 17. On March 20, 1998, we provided preliminary results of this work (see GAO/HEHS-98-112R). We conducted our work in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards between October 1997 and May 1998. To determine the prevalence of child labor in agriculture and the conditions under which these children work, we obtained and evaluated data from a variety of sources, reviewed the methodologies used to collect these data, and interviewed officials responsible for collecting these data. We explored several data sources, both public and private, to determine an estimate of the number of children employed in agriculture and the hazards they face. We reviewed information and databases from the Departments of Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, HHS, and other government agencies, such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor is responsible for several main sources of data, including the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, and the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. Labor’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy is responsible for the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS). HHS’ NIOSH, a federal agency that conducts independent research on working conditions, sponsors the National Traumatic Occupational Fatalities Surveillance System and the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, major sources of occupational fatality and injury data. We also reviewed information from private entities, such as the National Safety Council, the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the National Farm Medicine Center, and various university studies. Although some of these sources had helpful information, we did not use all of them because of their methodological constraints or coverage limitations. For example, some estimates defined children as anyone younger than 22 years old. In other cases, the methodologies used for developing the estimates were based on so many assumptions that the reliability of the estimates was questionable. We decided to focus on those nationally representative data that provide broad coverage of work experience by age, including CPS, NAWS, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, National Traumatic Occupational Fatalities Surveillance System, and National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. We reviewed previously published data, extracted data from public use files, and obtained special computer runs from the responsible agencies for key data used in this report. We extracted relevant data within the constraints of sample size and privacy considerations. NAWS has been conducted by Labor’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy for about a decade.