>The statistics you're quoting are more so due to the fact that most people in rural areas don't operate a bailer or really any farm machinery.
This is exactly the problem with some of these rural vs. urban debates. The pro-rural people will make claims about how important farmers are, etc., and seem to have some kind of romantic idea about what rural life is like, but the reality is that the vast majority of rural dwellers are not farmers, do not live any kind of "outdoorsy" life, and basically are people who are too poor or too anti-city to live in or closer to a city, and generally have a very sedentary and car-based lifestyle.
I'll be sure to tell my three uncles who raise pigs, tobacco, corn, soybeans, and peanuts the next time I see them that they aren't farmers. I should probably ask my cousins how they manage to find time to sit on their asses given their employment in the timber industry, ask my father what a sedentary ironworker even looks like, and then there's the minor issue of all the time I've spent working in the trades during the week and on heavy equipment on the weekends...
This is exactly the problem with some of these rural vs. urban debates. The pro-rural people will make claims about how important farmers are, etc., and seem to have some kind of romantic idea about what rural life is like, but the reality is that the vast majority of rural dwellers are not farmers, do not live any kind of "outdoorsy" life, and basically are people who are too poor or too anti-city to live in or closer to a city, and generally have a very sedentary and car-based lifestyle.