The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has offered the Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) to Nebraska farmers since 1993. In 2020, it created an online, asynchronous version of the course and applied for NTAE funding to translate it into Spanish, to better reach LatinX farmers. This publication discusses the growing need for pesticide safety instruction among Spanish-speaking farmers and what PSEP educators hope to accomplish with this audience. The publication is excerpted from the New Technologies for Ag Extension 2022-2023 Yearbook, which documents dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation. This work is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Grant projects improve human, environmental, and community health.
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Welcome. “Seguridad de Pesticidas” is a publication of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. This publication celebrates the accomplish- ments of a team at Extension professionals from University of Nebraska-Lincoln that received funding for this project in 2022-2023. NTAE is a grant program generously supported by the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and administered through a partnership between Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation (EXF). The primary objective of NTAE is to provide financial assistance to competitively selected Extension programs that align with the strategic goal and priority program areas of the USDA and the Extension Com- mittee on Organization and Policy (ECOP). Through this support, NTAE helps teams catalyze, accelerate, and expand their work in their respective fields. Since its inception in 2019, the NTAE program has successfully funded and supported a total of 72 projects and leaders. This includes collaborations with all Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) and ECOP Program Action Teams (PATs). Selected programs receive support for a period of one year. The project leader and their team are provided with invaluable mentoring from a team of catalysts, key infor- mants, and coaches from the EXF. This customized and innovative support model assists teams in exploring new possibilities, enhancing the intended impact of their projects, and sharing their work with a national audience. Additionally, each team receives additional resources and support to create materials and experiences that speed the development of their projects and bring about desired changes. The project showcased in this publication reflects the diversity and breadth of Extension disciplinary work and programming. In this publication, you will gain deeper insights into this exciting project, including the lessons learned, the project’s significance for Extension in a broader context, and what lies ahead for the team.
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PROJECT TEAM
Editorial Staff Julie Halverson Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Heather Martin Design & Production Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Ellen P. Krugel Heather Martin
Jennifer Weisbrod Pesticide Safety Education Program Coordinator, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Kezia Huseman Translator, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Luan Pereira de Oliveira Extension Educator, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Greg Puckett Extension Associate, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Linda Reddish Extension Educator, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vicki Schroeder Program Associate, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1. BE INSPIRED . Follow our model to reach non-En- glish language speakers in your community.
© Extension Foundation Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Published by Extension Foundation. Citations for this publication may be made using the following: Kansas City: Extension Foundation (2022). Seguridad de Pesticidas (1st ed). ISBN: 978-1-955687-25-6. This work, ISBN 978-1-955687-25-6, is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020- 41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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Extension Director and talk about how to use it to enhance your Extension’s public outreach. 3. SHARE. Share this publication with potential community partners who could help you create new programming. 4. GIVE FEEDBACK. Did this publication inform your Extension work? Share what you’ve
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What have you learned this year that has surprised you? The biggest surprise was all the hurdles to making accessibility an option. Translation services have been chal- lenging. It’s been difficult for us to find people with disciplinary expertise who can also translate materials for our program. This experience made me re- alize how privileged I am as an English speaker to be able to access so many resources with little difficulty. Is your program a model other Extension teams could use? Yes. Our plan is to share what we produce with other states and to create reciprocal relationships with pesticide safety education coordinators to enable farm workers and farmers in their states to receive training and licensure. The national regulatory environment is a challenge. Legal requirements for pesticide use and applicator certifica- tion vary from state to state, but hav- ing materials in Spanish available to share will be helpful. The need to train individuals who speak languages other than English is growing all over the U.S.
I receive requests all the time. Ultimately this is about inclusion, human rights, and environmental justice. It’s about having access to culturally appropriate informa- tion that enables people to advocate for themselves and the environment.
Extension program makes pesticide safety seminars accessible to LatinX farmers. SEGURI DAD de Pesticidas
What’s next for this program?
We want learners to change behaviors and use safer methods of pest man- agement to protect themselves, their businesses, and the environment. We’re revising and expanding the English-lan- guage training to make it even more interactive. We hope to get the Spanish training up and running in 2023. We’ll evaluate the preferred learning styles of Spanish-speaking communities and adjust our training accordingly. Having more data on preferred learning styles of Spanish-speaking groups will increase accessibility and, ideally, increase safe pesticide practices while decreasing potential harms of exposure. We also want to translate two other pesticide safety training programs (Commercial/Non-commercial and Chemigation) into Spanish.
P esticide safety is a major challenge on U.S. farms. Every year, thou- sands of farmers and farm workers suffer from pesticide poisoning, costing an estimated $200 million in emergency medical treatment and hospitalizations. And this number doesn’t include the costs of lost income and other long-term consequences for farmworkers, farm families, farms, and farming communities. To reduce these poisoning risks among Nebraska farmers, the University of Ne- braska-Lincoln (UNL) has offered the Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) since 1993, although national training had existed for decades. PSEP covers topics such as environmental protection, human health risks, personal protective equipment, integrated pest management, and safe application of pesticides. In 2020, UNL created an online, asynchronous version of the pesticide safety program, which enabled users to access the program anytime, anywhere. The team applied for a 2022-2023 New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant to support translating the online course into Spanish, making it available to the state’s growing number of LatinX farmers and farmworkers. UNL’s Pesticide Safety Education Program Coordinator Jennifer Weisbrod says the process involved collaborating with the priority audience. “How people learn—and want to learn—depends on their culture. While I am a disciplinary expert, LatinX culture is not my culture. I’ve allowed others to share with me how they want to learn.” Said the team’s NTAE Catalyst, Rick Klemme, “Jen’s leadership in creating an online, asynchronous version of the pesticide safety program is innovative in its engagement with Spanish speaking workers, her UNL colleagues and pesti- cide safety coordinators around the country.” We sat down with Weisbrod to learn more about her NTAE experience and what she hopes the program will become.
PSEP NEEDS Contact Jennifer Weisbrod, jweisbrod2@unl.edu, if you can help.
DONATIONS to pay for translating educational materials $$
Pesticide
Pesticidas
EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS about pesticide safety for LatinX learners
SPANISH TRANSLATORS who understand pesticide safety
PARTNERSHIPS with community groups, pesticide safety education programs
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