California
California AgrAbility presented at the 2020 AgrAbility Virtual National Training Workshop. Dr. Farzaneh Khorsandi presented on AgrAbility and agricultural all-terrain vehicle safety. She highlighted the importance of crush prevention devices and personal protective equipment. Esmeralda Mandujano gave a presentation titled "Applications of Cultural Humility in Everyday AgrAbility." Mandujano explored the differences between cultural competence and cultural humility. She explained how humility takes competence one step further to better understand and relate to the consumer and enable representatives to become better providers. An agricultural worker case was studied to exemplify how AgrAbility staff and agency representatives can practice cultural humility.
California AgrAbility staff attended the Center for Occupational Health and Safety (COEH) Builds Bridges Conference. Attendees explored in depth the ergonomic and occupation safety hazards of warehouses. There are 150,000 warehouse workers in California. This is an industry that is quickly growing and includes production agriculture. David Hornung, senior safety engineer at Cal/OSHA, used an Amazon facility as the prime example to illustrate the various hazards that lead to workplace injuries. Attendees also heard from Sumi Hoshiko from the California Department of Public Health, Kathleen Navarro from NIOSH, and other speakers, on the long-term effects of the fires that have affected Californians throughout the years. Staff had a chance to network with other health and safety agencies and professionals.
California AgrAbility staff did outreach at the Zenith Ag Safety and Compliance Summit in Fresno. The summit brought together over 300 farmworkers, farm supervisors, and farm owners, to learn about agricultural health and safety topics and technologies. Sessions included ATV/RTV/UTV safety, lessons learned from accidents on the farm, active shooter response, distracted driving, and pesticide training, among others. Other agencies tabled included Zenith, Boretti Business Safety Solutions, Dawg Pound Tires, WIC, Jorgensen Co, and the California Highway Patrol.
Submitted by Sara Wat