Michigan

In mid-October, MSU's Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine connected the Michigan AgrAbility team with a visiting fellow, Usher Mandisekwe, from Zimbabwe who expressed an interest in assistive technology for women working in greenhouses and horticulture, through Africa's largest disability-serving nonprofit, the Jairos Jiri Association. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jairos_Jiri_Association The MAP team quickly jumped to action and coordinated a way to help provide information on short notice during his short visit to Michigan, and amidst other prior commitments. Bev Berens picked up Usher on MSU's campus and coordinated with a young woman and MAP client who had attended the regional training workshop in Ann Arbor in 2024, who showed Usher around the farm and greenhouses. She demonstrated trellising systems for a better harvest height, long-handled tools for lifting hanging baskets, and other ergonomic and effective low-cost AT that the family relies on. Ag & occupational health educator Samantha Wolfe also joined Usher on a Zoom call and discussed raised beds, the wealth of resources and information on the NAP website, and other potential contacts in both the US and Africa. It was a unique and exciting experience to consider ways that AgrAbility has lots of potential for people with disabilities in Zimbabwe and beyond.

Ned Stoller and Samantha Wolfe are also working with Michigan Food and Farming Systems, Heroes to Hives, and the MSU AgBioResearch's Forestry Innovation Center to offer a maple sap tubing workshop in the Upper Peninsula on Veteran's Day. For many farmers, veterans, and small producers, the physical demands of making maple syrup can create barriers to participating in or expanding their operations. This workshop is designed to open the sugar bush to more people by blending time-honored practices with modern accessibility solutions, and 200 taps will be installed at a veteran's family farm.

Submitted by Samantha Wolfe