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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