Progress 09/01/24 to 08/31/25

Outputs
Target Audience:The CalAgrAbility Program serves the 58 California Counties. It works to assist agricultural and agribusiness farmers and farmworkers who have physical and mental disabilities to adapt their homes and/or farms to enable them to continue working in agriculture. Audiences include health, government, and non-profit service providers, as well as AgrAbility staff, who are interested in accommodating disability, avoiding secondary injury on farms, and developing strategies to reduce work barriers. CalAgrAbility consumers as well as the general farming public are reached via mass email, mail, the Internet, and phone. Educational materials are also targeted for other farming and agricultural health providers to use in their workshops and make available to consumers interested in farming health. The target audience is summarized as: any person (e.g., farmer), or organization in agriculture with an interest in disabilities, farming issues, rehabilitation, assistive technologies, rural areas, social services, ergonomics, arthritis, workers' compensation, among others. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?To build CalAgrAbility's capacity to assist agricultural populations, staff regularly participate in the National AgrAbility Program's Community of Interests (COIs), NAP All-Staff calls, and committees. Staff join monthly seminars from the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety on topics addressing CA's unique agricultural health and safety challenges. Staff also join webinars (from sources such as National AgrAbility Program, AgriSafe, and AgSafe) regularly on topics such as: assistive technologies, preventing secondary injury, agriculture worksite accommodations, fall prevention for agriculture producers, mental health, TBI. Seminars, workshops, and conference attendance are listed under the major activities above. Staffing booths at conferences has also been an opportunity for staff to grow professionally, as they can take turns attending sessions relevant to AgrAbility work. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Cal AgrAbility staff have participated in 10 health events to share CalAgrAbility information with agencies and consumers. CalAgrAbility was also represented at three expos and conferences; a highlight was the World Ag Expo, with thousands of attendees and 2,000 interactions counted at our booth. They have held 12 formal collaborative meetings between agencies and with other partners to network and conduct outreach. CalAgrAbility and community partners have conducted 1 Arthritis Foundation (AF) land exercise classes in a local agricultural community. The activity concluded on May 30, 2025, and lasted for 12 weeks with a range of 8-20 participants per session. CalAgrAbility staff have active producer cases in 17 California counties. A mixture of calls, visits, and emails has occurred for providing case management for these cases. The CalAgrAbility bi-annual newsletter was disseminated to our mailing listserv, which has approximately 1,700 recipients, including past and current consumers, as well as posted on our social media, X. This newsletter reaches professionals, farmers, and agricultural workers in the program's listservs, including all AgrAbility SRAP staff. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For the remainder of this cycle, CalAgrAbility will continue to assist disabled farmers and farmworkers. The current strategy involves assisting, outreach, marketing, and conducting educational workshops/webinars through collaboration with partner Ability Tools and other collaborators, such as the Department of Rehabilitation, the Employment Development Department, and the Independent Living Centers, among others. We will continue to outreach at conferences and partner meetings, as this approach has yielded strong ties with professionals who can later refer potential AgrAbility clients. We will continue to use our metrics and mapping strategies to plan our outreach activities.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Project Impact: CalAgrAbility staff has conducted 14 intakes for new consumers (disabled farmers and employees) and continues to provide assistance for 30 ongoing cases. A series of site assessments, information on equipment modification, job task restructuring, environmental modifications, and recommendations for low-cost solutions have been provided to our consumers. The project staff facilitated a range of activities for our consumers, including advocacy with agencies, referrals, coordination with support activities among providers, assistance in navigating medical/rehabilitation agencies, translation, identifying low-cost solutions, troubleshooting assistance, and general support. This year, CalAgrAbility and the National AgrAbility Program supported a California farmer in attending the National AgrAbility Training in Las Cruces, New Mexico. ?CalAgrAbility informational literature has been distributed in various forms and at several venues. Several workshops and in-person seminars were conducted to reach a wide audience of disabled farmers and farmworkers, as well as professionals throughout the state. These activities effectively serve the project's mission of helping disabled farmers stay active and productive in agriculture. Our program currently has 44 active open cases throughout the state. The following is a list of specific activities carried out from September 1, 2024, to July 20, 2025. Priority Objective 1. Education is to increase the knowledge of farmers/workers with injuries, chronic disease and diabetes, and their families, as well as health, government and non-profit service providers regarding accommodating disability and avoiding secondary injury on farms and developing strategies to reduced work barriers. Activity 1a. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility and its community partners have led 5 and self-help workshops for rural community members and service providers these workshops averaged 48 attendees. This serves to support sustainability of program goals. Activity 1b. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility produced 1 CalAgrAbility of our BiAnnual Newsletters. The second newsletter is in progress. Staff created written stories for cases closed successfully. These can serve as examples of AgrAbility services to the general public and agency representatives. The newsletter included a Spotlight on developmental disabilities and the work CalAgrAbility has done creating collaborations with service providers to reach farm families. Staff are currently working on our next newsletter to be published in the Fall. CalAgrAbility created two spots on "Aggie Tips" and "Aggie Tools" to disseminate information on ergonomics and assistive devices as possible solutions to facilitate agricultural work for individuals with disabilities. Activity 1c. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility and community partners have conducted 1 Arthritis Foundation (AF) land exercise classes in a local agricultural community. The activity concluded on May 30, 2025 and lasted for 12 weeks with a range of 8-20 participants per session. Activity 1d. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility staff held a booth at the California Small Farms Conference in-person. Scholarship information was distributed to CalAgrAbility farmers. Activity 1e. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility has sent out 15 sets of informational brochures to rural health clinics in Toulumne, Tulare, Siskiyou, Shasta, Sutter, Tehama, Fresno, Modoc, Imperial, San Diego, Alameda, Madera, Kern, Napa, and Sacramento counties. Activity 1f. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility participated in the 2025 AgrAbility National Training workshop in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Staff presented two workshops, including a Critical Conversations series on farmer mental health in AgrAbility case management and collaboration across agencies. Activity 1g. From 2024-25: Demographics report for NAP was completed and submitted. Priority Objective 2. Networking is to encourage information sharing among customers, peer supporters, student and volunteer groups, stakeholders and public and private organizations that can assist CalAgrAbility consumers in the short- and long-term. Networking also builds service capacity through collaboration with health, farm and rehab service professionals. Activity 2a. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility and ATN have held 12 formal collaborative meetings between agencies and with other partners to network. Activity 2b. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility and Ability Tools have attended 10 health events to share CalAgrAbility information with agencies and consumers. CalAgrAbility was also represented at 3 expos and conferences; a highlight was the World Ag Expo with thousands of attendees and 2,000 counted interactions at our booth. Activity 2c. From 2024-25: For the Advisory Board CalAgrAbility has kept in contact with collaborators Department of Rehabilitation, NRCS, and Yolo County Public Health. Activity 2d. From 2024-25: CalAgrAbility has identified and progressed on collaborations with representatives from Syngenta, Disability Rights California and Center for Land Based Learning. Activity 2e. From 2024-25: To build CalAgrAbility's capacity to assist agriculture populations staff continues to participate in NAP's Community of Interests (COIs), committees and webinars. CalAgrAbility call into all All-Staff Calls and National AgrAbility Program board meetings. Furthermore, California submits an e-note monthly and they continue to tweet on social media. Priority Objective 3. Assistance is direct service -- to provide California consumers/families services to fill with their immediate and long-term needs, related to accommodating injury, illness, and disability while continuing work on the farm. Activity 3a. From 2024-25: From September 1, 2024 to July 20, 2025 CalAgrAbility staff has conducted 14 intakes for new consumers. Activity 3b-e. From 2024-25: The 14 clients received a combination of: Site assessments, information on equipment modification, job task restructuring, environmental modifications, recommendations for low cost solutions, advocacy with agencies, referrals, coordination with support activities among providers, assistance in navigating medical/rehabilitation agencies, translation, troubleshooting assistance and general support has been provided by CalAgrAbility staff for consumers. Priority Objective 4. Marketing is to increase awareness about CalAgrAbility's work and consumers and to provide links among/between our education-assistance-networking objectives and activities. Activity 4a. From 2024-25: See Activity 2b. Outreach and engagement locations spanned more than 20 counties throughout the state.

Publications

Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The CalAgrAbility Program serves the 58 California Counties; and works to assist agricultural and agribusiness workers who have physical and mental disabilities to adapt their homes and/or farms in order to enable them to continue working in agriculture. Audiences also include health, government, and non-profit service providers regarding accommodating disability and avoiding secondary injury on farms, developing strategies to reduce work barriers, this also includes other AgrAbility staff. CalAgrAbility consumers as well as the general farming public are reached via mass email, mail, Internet, and phone. Educational materials are also targeted for other farming and agricultural health providers to be able to use in their own workshops and have available for their consumers interested in farming health. The target audience summarizes as: any person or organization with an interest in disabilities, farming issues, rehabilitation, assistive technologies, rural areas, social services, ergonomics, arthritis, workers comp, bilingual cultural farm matters, etc. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?To build CalAgrAbility's capacity to assist agriculture populations, staff continues to participate in the National AgrAbility Program's Community of Interests (COIs), NAP All-Staff calls, and committees. The staff attends monthly seminars from theWestern Center for Agricultural Health and Safety on topics addressing CA's unique agricultural health and safety challenges. Staff also joins webinars (from sources such as the National AgrAbility Program, AgriSafe, AgSage, and Migrant Clinicians Network) regularly on topics such as: assistive technologies, preventing secondary injury, agriculture worksite accommodations, fall prevention for agriculture producers, mental health, TBI. Seminars, workshops, and attendance at conferences are listed in the major activities above. Staffing booths at conferences has also been an opportunity for staff to grow professionally as they can take turns attending sessions that are relevant to AgrAbility work. This year they attended the National Center for Farmworker Health Symposium where they learned about various risks farmworkers face regularly. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?CalAgrAbility and Ability Tools have attended 10 health, conference, and expo events to share CalAgrAbility information with agencies that serve rural communities and potential consumers. They have held 16 formal collaborative meetings between agencies and with other partners to network and outreach. CalAgrAbility and its partners have led a total of 2 Arthritis Foundation Self-Help workshops for Spanish and English-speaking rural residents. The program has conducted outreach and presentations in person in 5 out of the 58 California counties. Some of these counties had more than one in-person outreach effort. CalAgrAbility produced 1 CalAgrAbility newsletter that was translated into Spanish. This was disseminated to our mailing listserv, which has about 1,700 recipients including past and current consumers as well as posted on our social media, X. This newsletter reaches professionals, farmers, and agricultural workers in the program's listserves including all AgrAbility SRAP staff. Furthermore, 2 public service announcements have been produced and disseminated via email, and at outreach events CalAgrAbility has conducted 6 in-person workshops in rural communities; on average CalAgrAbility recruits one full consumer from each of these classes. Many attendees often do not know that they are at risk of developing arthritis due to the repetitive nature of ag work. CalAgrAbilitiy staff was interviewed by "Radio Mexico la Gran X" a radio station that reaches Northern California audiences in Spanish. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For the remainder of this grant year, CalAgrAbility will continue to assist disabled farmers and farmworkers. With our partner Ability Tools able to carry out their contracted activities now that our funding contract is set, we will complete our AgrAbility-related topic presentations for the AT Network staff. The current strategy involves assisting, outreaching, marketing, and conducting education workshops/webinars through collaborating with partner Ability Tools and other collaborators such as DOR, EDD, FREED, ILCs, LCHCA, etc. We will continue to reach out at conferences as this approach has yielded strong ties with professionals who can later refer potential AgrAbility clients. As suggested by NIFA at the National AgrAbility Workshop, we will continue using a map to plan our outreach in an effort to cover the whole state.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? ? Priority Objective 1. Educationis to increase the knowledge of farmers/workers with injuries, chronic disease, and diabetes, and their families, as well as health, government, and non-profit service providers regarding accommodating disability,avoiding secondary injury on farms, and developing strategies to reduce work barriers. Priority Objective 1. Educationis to increase the knowledge of farmers/workers with injuries, chronic disease, and diabetes, and their families, as well as health, government, and non-profit service providers regarding accommodating disability,avoiding secondary injury on farms, and developing strategies to reduce work barriers. Activity 1a. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility and its community partners have led 6 self-help workshops in English and Spanish for agricultural workers and rural community members these workshops have averaged 22 attendees. CalAgrAbility hosted a train-the-trainer event for trainers of a community clinic to continue leading low impact movement classes. This serves to support sustainability of program goals. Activity 1b. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility produced 1 CalAgrAbility Quarterly Newsletters that was translated into Spanish. Staff created written stories of a farmworker case that was closed successfully and can serve to exemplify AgrAbility services to the general public and agency representatives. The newsletter included a Spotlight on occupational therapy and the work CalAgrAbility has done in the field bringing OT professionals to farms. Staff are currently working on our next newsletter to be published in the Fall. CalAgrAbility created 2 bilingual spots on "Aggie Tips" and "Aggie Tools" to disseminate information on ergonomics and assistive devices as possible solutions to facilitate agricultural work for individuals with a disability. Staff were invited to do a radio interview for a Northern California radio station to speak on disability and migrant workers. The bilingual spots CalAgrAbility produced resources are disseminated to a list serve of 1,600 in addition to tabling events. Activity 1c. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility and community partners have conducted 2 Arthritis Foundation (AF) land exercise classes in rural communities and local clinics. Workshops average 22 attendees. Activity 1d. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility staff held a booth at the California Small Farms Conference in-person gathering that took place in Yolo County on the UC Davis campus. Scholarship information was distributed to CalAgrAbility farmers. A local CalAgrAbility program participant joined the Davis in-person gathering after the online conference concluded. Activity 1e. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility has sent out 32 informational brochures to County Agricultural Commissioners across the state including: Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Alpine, Fresno, Glenn, Humboldt, Imperial, Inyo, Mono, Kings, Lake, Los Angeles, Lassen, Madera, Marin, Merced, Modoc, Monterey, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Plumas, Riveside, San Benito, San Bernardino and Sierra counties. Activity 1f. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility participated in the 2023 AgrAbility National Training workshop in Atlanta, Georgia. Staff presented 2 workshops: Cultural Humility panel and Critical Conversations series. An AgrAbility program participant attended the conference and participated in the Cultural Competency panel to provide a farmworker testimony. This program participant exemplified CalAgrAbility services in farmworker populations. CalAgrAbility staff assisted a Hawaii farmer to get a conference farmer stipend to attend the conference. This farmer received AgrAbililty services from CalAgrAbility in 2022-2023. Activity 1g. From 2023-24: Report for NAP to be completed and submitted by August 31, 2024. Priority Objective 2. Networking is to encourage information sharing among customers, peer supporters, student and volunteer groups, stakeholders and public and private organizations that can assist CalAgrAbility consumers in the short- and long-term. Networking also builds service capacity through collaboration with health, farm and rehab service professionals. Activity 2a. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility and ATN have held 16 formal collaborative meetings between agencies and with other partners to network. Activity 2b. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility and Ability Tools have attended 10 health events to share CalAgrAbility information with agencies and consumers. CalAgrAbility was also represented at 3 expos and conferences; some of these were the Latino Farmers Conference, Ag Day at the Capitol, and the Small Farms Conference. Activity 2c. From 2023-24: To rebuild the Advisory Board CalAgrAbility has kept in contact with collaborators Migrant Education, NRCS, and DOR. Activity 2d. From 2023-24: CalAgrAbility has identified and progressed on collaborations with representatives from Disability Rights California and Yolo Hospice. Activity 2e. From 2023-24: To build CalAgrAbility's capacity to assist agriculture populations staff continues to participate in NAP's Community of Interests (COIs), committees and webinars. CalAgrAbility call into all All-Staff Calls and National AgrAbility Program board meetings. Furthermore, California submits an e-note every month and they continue to tweet on social media. Priority Objective 3. Assistance is direct service -- to provide California consumers/families services to fill with their immediate and long-term needs, related to accommodating injury, illness, and disability while continuing work on the farm. Activity 3a. From 2023-24: From September 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 CalAgrAbility staff has conducted 18 intakes for new consumers. Activity 3b-e. From 2023-24: The 18 clients received a combination of: Site assessments, information on equipment modification, job task restructuring, environmental modifications, recommendations for low-cost solutions, advocacy with agencies, referrals, coordination with support activities among providers, assistance in navigating medical/rehabilitation agencies, translation, troubleshooting assistance, and general support has been provided by CalAgrAbility staff for consumers. Priority Objective 4. Marketing is to increase awareness about CalAgrAbility's work and consumers and to provide links among/between our education-assistance-networking objectives and activities. Activity 4a. From 2023-24: See Activity 2b.

Publications