rivettingKateTaylor

So now’s it’s dangerous for me to bring my kids up on a farm? FOR GOODNESS SAKE (picture half a dozen strong words combined with a slow shake of the head and a grim mouth to match).

This story was on the radio this morning and it has now caught my attention on stuff.co.nz. According to the story, children raised on livestock farms have a greater risk of developing blood cancers later in life. A study by Andrea ‘t Mannetje, of the Centre for Public Health Research at Massey University in Wellington (well there you go, has probably never lived in the real world), found the risk of developing a blood cancer is 22 per cent higher for those who grew up on a livestock farm than for those who
did not.

Children raised on poultry farms had the greatest risk, with their chances of developing a cancer such as leukaemia, multiple myeloma or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma three times higher. Dr ‘t Mannetje said further research would be needed to find a definitive cause and effect. (You don’t say.)

People are still more likely to be killed on the roads. There is no way I am going to give up the chance for my children to have calves, pigs and chooks, feed out hay, collect eggs, pick broad beans and empty pig buckets (chores, townies, real chores). Breathing real air. Clean air. Fresh air. Sunshine, rain and bitter souwesters or warm norwesters – it’s real. More real than sitting on a couch playing play station in between heating up a frozen meal in a microwave.

Viva la farm life.