Proclamation 3897—National Farm Safety Week, 1969

American agriculture has advanced more in the past 50 years than in all our prior history. A third as many farmers are feeding twice as many Americans today as in 1920. In addition, America is the world's largest exporter of agricultural products, and our abundance is a powerful force for world peace.

Fundamental to this unparalleled achievement in food and fiber production have been the strong hands and management skills of our farm people. While their accomplishments have dramatically increased production, our farm people have suffered a tragic toll of accidents.

Agriculture continues to rank third among our industries in accidental death rate. Thousands of farm residents are fatally injured every year and hundreds of thousands disabled. The dollar cost to the nation approaches $2 billion, but the cost in pain, grief, and suffering cannot be measured.

This terrible waste demands our urgent attention. It can be sharply reduced if everyone working in agriculture makes safety an integral part of management planning, a part of every job and every activity, both on and off the farm.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby call on the people of the nation to observe the week of July 20, 1969, as National Farm Safety Week. I urge all farm families, and those persons and groups serving or allied with agriculture, to use all possible means for minimizing accident losses at work, in homes, at recreation, and on public roads.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-third.

RICHARD NIXON