[perl4ever]

I seem to recall reading that farming is comparable statistically to mining, or even more dangerous. It's pretty much among the top most dangerous occupations, at any rate. Which is consistent with how historically people have given up farming to work in the seemingly brutal sweatshops in cities, whether in the US and Europe, or in the Third World.

Anecdotally, my grandfather died some time after being burned in a conflagration related to cleaning something with gasoline, and none of his children became farmers. One daughter went to college and became a computer programmer, another started a delivery business, his son went to work for a VA hospital, and his wife sold the farm and became a nurse after her husband died.

It's hard to imagine conditions that predate your parents' time, and most people at this point are probably more than one generation away from their farming ancestors.