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The agriculture industry is one of the most dangerous in the world. Workers need to deal with everything from pesticides to dangerous machinery to large animals. In fact, between 1999 and 2001, 5077 agricultural workers died from injuries directly related to their jobs. This is excluding death due to chemical poisoning. So not only do agricultural workers receive the lowest wages, but they also are risking their lives, and their well-being.
Agricultural workers are the least likely to be able to overcome any kind of significant injury. One reason is that they often do not receive compensation when they get hurt on the job, which puts their families in an extremely difficult situation. Another reason that long leaves of absence hurt the common agricultural worker is that they are extremely replaceable. If one worker goes down due to injury or illness, most of the time that worker will be replaced in a matter of days. So instead of resting and coming back to work fully healed, most of these workers try to work through the pain and exacerbate their injuries.
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