California

Staff participated in the "Stress, Resilience, and Resources: Responding to the Impacts of COVID-19 on Farms" webinar presented by Dr. Leslie Forstadt and Maine AgrAbility. During this pandemic, many farmers are feeling more stress due to chain supply changes, decreased sales with less market demand in produce, changes in childcare with school closures, workers unable to come to work, and many more. Mayo Clinic published an informative resource for individuals to determine the signs of stress and depression affecting your body, mood, and behavior. See the image for Mayo Clinic's findings. With the increase in stress, it is important to recognize this change, and properly address the situation. Forstadt gives many great ideas for farmers and representatives to approach this situation such as connecting with others and consumers, building resilience through exercise, understanding your signals, practicing gratitude, and creating a resilient community with members becoming interdependent. During this trying time, it is important to reach out to encourage and support one another to create a stronger community that will be able to overcome this obstacle.

California AgrAbility staff attended the Mexican Consulate Health Window Providers meeting via Zoom. This is a collaboration that offers services at the Mexican Consulate in Sacramento which serves the Northern California counties. Other agencies attending the virtual meeting included Community Medical Centers, Health Education Council, Opening Doors, and UC Davis MIND Institute. Each agency presented an overview of how they have adjusted their services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations in this association are working together to deliver services efficiently while minimizing person-to-person contact. The Mexican Consulate personnel will be visiting various migrant centers along with CalOES representatives to distribute printed information to these communities which have limited access to internet-based information.

Staff continue to attend AgriSafe's Think Tank webinars. The Zenith presented COVID-19 resources to address communication by promoting action, being credible, expressing empathy, communicating with respect, and reaching out by looking for new ways to communicate. They highlighted the essential elements of an infection prevention program which will be necessary and vital to ensure the health and safety of farmers, farmworkers, and agricultural workers. With this, Zenith created a checklist with a guideline of the expectations for each farming capacity along with a comprehensive list of resources including infographics. Check it out here.

Submitted by Sara Wat