Michigan

At the end of each semester, the MSU College of Engineering celebrates the achievements of its students by hosting Design Day, where student teams exhibit their design projects and compete for awards. All ten of the MSU engineering academic programs are represented at Design Day, including freshman through senior level classes. Each semester, Michigan AgrAbility proposes a project to assist their clients. When design team Nathan McLean, Michael Houser, Madison Duncan, Steven Atkin, Diamant Topllari, and faculty advisor Dr. Brian Feeny learned about the challenges that a local army veteran and bee farmer was having, they jumped at the chance to partner with Michigan AgrAbility. Due to a back injury that occurred in the line of duty, the farmer was unable to move the heavy beehive boxes. The team designed a new axle that stabilized a lifter device which prevented it from tipping over. Now the farmer is able to easily move the 300-lb. boxes without causing damage to the hive or the farmer. Recently, the team was presented with an award for their design. Congratulations to the team! The design will help many farmers in similar situations!

Meet Joe and Laurie Grant! Joe and Laurie are Christmas tree and cherry growers from Lake Leelenau, Michigan. Michigan AgrAbility is supporting both of them as they keep working in spite of arthritic conditions that make it challenging for them to prune their trees and operate equipment. AgrAbility installed a forklift observation camera at the Hull Lift Truck booth at the Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Grower's Expo. Joe was able to try it out and realized how much a camera system would help him work more safely with his arthritis. Michigan AgrAbility will be helping him with a forklift camera system, and Laurie with an electric powered pruner to relieve the arthritis in her hands.

Beginning January 16, 2019, MSU Extension is offering a beginning farmer webinar series. Michigan AgrAbility's own Ned Stoller leads off the twelve 60-minute, on-line, evening webinars discussing The Physical Labor of Farming: the physical workload of starting a farm...hours per day, days per year, lifting, bending, crawling, carrying, digging, reaching, etc. This will provide a realistic look at the effort a farmer faces for various farm enterprises and tools to help the farmer work more efficiently, especially if the farmer is not in "perfect" health. Participants have an opportunity through live online chat to ask questions of MSU and other agriculture experts. A $5 fee is charged for each webinar in the series, or $30 for the full series (50% savings!). Participants may register for all or some of the courses at any time, even if the session has already taken place. In the latter case, participants will get a link to the recorded program. The webinars will be delivered on the ZOOM webinar platform. A high-speed internet connection is required, and connection information will be emailed to registered participants prior to each webinar. Following each webinar, registered participants will receive a link to the recorded webinar. The Beginning Farmer Webinar Series flyer can be viewed here. Visit this website for details.

It was a busy December for Michigan AgrAbility! In the December 2018 e-note, Michigan AgrAbility highlighted the "Farming With A Shoulder Injury" presentation at the Great Lakes Grower's Expo given by Ned Stoller (Michigan AgrAbility) and Curt Bishop,PT (Hulst Jepsen Physical Therapy) -NOW there are pictures! Staff are appreciative of Hulst Jepsen Physical Therapy's support of Michigan AgrAbility!
Michigan AgrAbility also had a booth at the Expo - Check out the video.

In addition to the Great Lakes Grower's Expo, Michigan AgrAbility exhibited at the Farm Bureau State Annual Meeting at the Amway Grand Plaza in Grand Rapids. Additional outreach included promoting the AgriSafe webinar: "Ergonomic Safety for Farm Women" on the Michigan AgrAbility Facebook page.

Submitted by Deb Chester