Missouri

The Leaders in the Field Podcast series, hosted by Dr. Mackenzie Bevins, 2024 occupational therapy graduate who completed her capstone with Missouri AgrAbility Program, is dedicated to enhancing healthcare practitioners' understanding of the agricultural population, focusing on the unique healthcare needs, challenges, and contextual factors of agricultural workers. By offering insights on health, safety, and well-being, this podcast aims to provide valuable knowledge that will help healthcare professionals deliver more effective, client-centered care to this underserved and unique community. This series is for a wide variety of healthcare practitioners but applies occupational therapy principles to working with agricultural producers and their families, ensuring that practitioners are equipped to address the diverse and specific needs of this population in a client-centered and holistic way.

The 2024 Pearls of Production Conference was a two-day conference for women in agriculture. Day one, October 29th, started via ZOOM at 6:00pm with a breakout session with four options and a keynote presenter. Session topics included estate planning, backyard layers, enhancing value added meat marketing and beekeeping. Day two, November 2, offered three hands-on breakout sessions. Women in agriculture were provided with health, safety, and wellbeing information including MO AgrAbility, ergonomics for women, and Show-Me Strong Farm Families mental health resources.

Submitted by Emily Doosing, Brenda Schreck, Susan Jaster, Willard Downs, and Karen Funkenbusch