>> Good morning, can you hear me? 
>> Yes.
>> And I can hear her too, yes.
>> Good morning, we're going to start really soon.
>> Recording in progress. 
>> MATTHEW DICKENS:  Good morning.  To everyone who has joined us this morning for this webinar on AgrAbility.  We actually have presenters here today from the program.  Cindy Kovar, we're going to introduce some of us, we'll turn it over to her after we talk about everybody that's here.  And we'll move on from there.
Then I about GC P D, the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities, they have a mission to further opportunities for persons with disabilities to enjoy the full and equal access to lives of independence, productivity, and self‑determination.  GCPD recommends changes in disability policies and programs in the areas of accessibility, communication, criminal justice, education, emergency preparedness, employment health, housing, and veterans.  The committee also supports a network of committees on people's with disabilities, issues, awards to promote greater awareness and promotes compliance with disability‑related laws.
Now, as far as general information with this presentation, the chat is disabled, but if you have any questions, feel free to do the Q and A.  And you can ask your questions there, most of the questions I can answer towards the end of the presentation.
Please avoid using your personal questions.  Make it more general for everyone so you can have those questions answered.
There will be an email as well with the Zoom link on this recording so you can have access to that.  We will actually have surveys as well that we'll get feedback from you as well.  We always appreciate your feedback in general.
We're going to go ahead and turn it over to you, Cindy.
>> CINDY KOVAR: Thank you.  Should I leave my camera on during the presentation?  Yes, okay, thank you.
All right.  I never find a good place to put the camera, because I'm gag to look at my notes over here, and ask the presentation is over here.  So please know I am attentive.
I'm Cindy Kovar, the Program Manager for Texas AgrAbility.  We cover the whole state of Texas, which is all 254 counties.  And as you know, Texas is pretty big.  There are AgrAbilitys in about 22 other states, so it is ‑‑ it's throughout the United States, in most states, almost half.  And everybody has ‑‑ works towards a similar mission.  I'm going to get started and let you know what we do and how we can assist you guys if you're working in the agriculture business.
So just want to share, there's an image here of a gentleman farmer getting into his truck by a lift chair.  Today I'm excited to share with you some assistive technology and how it's transforming the agriculture business for farmers and ranchers with disabilities.  And how together we can build a more inclusive rural community.  We are Texas A&M University, Texas A&M AgrAbility Extension, and we are funded by the US Department of Agriculture.  So our mission is to assist farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers in Texas who are living with disabilities, chronic health conditions, or functional limitations, enabling them to work, or continue to work in production of agriculture.  We also do a lot of education of other folks, so they can be aware of the challenges of folks with disabilities.  For example, this Friday I'll be teaching at a master gardener's class in Denton, which is in the North Texas area, even though they're not really in agriculture business, they are planting little gardens and we want them to be able to work through their disability on a smaller scale.  We do lots of different outreach.
So the picture ‑‑ once we change the slide here ‑‑ there we go.  That's actually one of our clients.  He's ‑‑ has an amputation of the leg, and when we first met him he was getting around with just a walker on his farm, so you can imagine that's not very ergonomic or accessible with those thin wheels and the very ‑‑ the ground is very textured and stuff.  So one of the ‑‑ farming is one of the oldest and most physically demanding professions in the world.  But what happens when a farmer becomes disabled due to illness or injury or aging?  Someone with a disability dreams of working the land.  So we work with folks, some people, do they have to have an amputation or be in a wheelchair?  No, they can have something as simple as arthritis or bad back.  They're not simple, but they're less severe disability than what most people think they would serve.  We serve a whole spectrum of folks with disabilities.
In the United States, there are 634,000 farmers and ranchers who live with disabilities.  And many of those remain active, productive, and independent.  A lot of that is due to the growing role of assistive technology.  So we're going to talk about some of that assistive technology today.
This is our same farmer here.  And he is now getting off his tractor and he's reaching for his walker in the image.  And so those physical and cognitive disabilities can create real obstacles for farm operations.  And this might include mobility issues, like climbing onto a tractor or navigating rough terrain, or sensory impairments like limited vision or hearing, or cognitive disabilities, such as those that might be caused by conditions like PTSD or other things that may affect decision‑making and time management skills.
I'm going to slow down, because I know I tend to talk too fast.
Beyond the physical, there are economic and social challenges.  And adaptive equipment can be costly in many rural communities like those support services.  There's also a stigma, isolation and a lack of understanding, and despite these challenges, many farmers persevere, especially when given the right tools.
What I have seen, because we directly go to the farmers on their farm, we actually meet them where they live and work, they are just so ‑‑ they have like an ingenuity kind of way of fixing things.  They come up with a lot much solutions to things that don't even exist to help them to accommodate their disability, so I'm always amazed at what they've done themselves to do some assistive technology.  To help them out.  And of course we know that any time it's called assistive technology, it's about five times the price of what maybe a stool would be, you know, or something like that, that's not considered assistive technology.  So unfortunately if we put the words "assistive technology" on any tool, it's sometimes double or even five times the amount.  A lot of times they're able to adapt an existing item, or told to meet the needs of their disability.  So they're very creative.
Let's go to the next slide.
So on this slide it's just dollar signs, so again, that adaptive equipment is very costly.  So there's sometimes limited financial resources available.  Especially, we're talking about small family‑run operations.  Most people don't realize that most of the farms in Texas, and really throughout the United States, are not big corporate farms.  They're very small mom and pop farms.  Many of these rural areas, suffer from social stigma, lack of awareness and isolation, making it harder for those individuals to seek help or connect with resources.
One thing about farmers is, they don't farm to retire.  They farm for life.  It's like a lifestyle.  It's not a profession.  And so we'll see farmers a lot of times much older than you would might expect.  The average age of farmers in Texas is 60 years old.  Most people ‑‑ yeah, wow.  Most people at 60 are thinking about retiring, but that's our average age of farmers.  So that's really pretty outstanding.  These folks have been farming for 40, 50 years, because they were often children on the farm working the farm as well.
So we'll go to the next slide, you'll see some tools.  These are just a few examples of some ergonomic tools available.  The one in the first image is some regular gardening tools for you guys with sight limitations, where they're at a 90‑degree angle rather than a straight across handle.  Those can often take the pressure off the wrist and the elbows to make simple gardening tasks much more efficient and less hard on the body.
Then the other image shows a hydraulic lift table, which is a scissor design, so it opens much like a pair of scissors.  It can come up to different heights so you're working at a more comfortable height so it doesn't put so much strain on your back and knees.  So this could even be something that if you weren't a farmer, but maybe you were ‑‑ you did crafts, or painting, or cooking, and you just never find a table space that's at a height that doesn't cause you additional discomfort or pain, that might be something you might want to consider to use for that need as well.  Because it will ‑‑ you can adjust it up and down, it's hydraulic to a point, it's comfortable for you to be standing at.  Good use of tools there.
We'll go to the next slide.
There's a lot of modifications on machinery.  We definitely ‑‑ we've got a lot of farmers and ranchers that are transferring from chairs onto tractors and stuff, so this image shows a gentleman with a chairlift on the back of a pickup truck getting lifted into a very large tractor.  So a lot of my farmers can physically lift themselves even if they're paralyzed into the tractor.  But you can marbling the overuse and overwear of their shoulders and arms as they pull themselves into the equipment day in and day out many times.  So we're going to try to reserve their energy levels and try to keep them from having shoulder injuries that may increase their disability because now they've torn a shoulder along with having paralysis.  So we're going to try to keep them from having those additional injuries.
A lot of times we'll advocate for good ergonomic seats in the tractors, because all of us can benefit by that ergonomic seat when we've been in a tractor eight or 10 hours a day.  We've already got a bad back, bad knees, or maybe paralysis, we're sitting a lot of time throughout the day anyway.  So that particular help ‑‑ from causing additional problems that may come with long‑term sitting. 
Next image, please.
This is showing you additional tools, some of the things that we're showing here is a regular garden rake with the addition of a handle to it, and a somewhat normal shovel‑type design, it looks more for snow, which we don't hardly get in Texas.  It's got an additional handle, two handles rather than one.  The smaller handle is coming off the stem of the larger handle so you can use two hands to shovel.  And that's going to make that more ergonomic, so things that are available as well as a tiller, which would till the land, the dirt, and it's got hand controls that are a little more ergonomic and easy to adapt with maybe where you have limited hand strength and stuff.  So there's simple changes there.
And then also too, that tiller with the ergonomic handles, I know women are able to do just whatever, but we sometimes are not as physically strong as men, and so we've got a lot of female farmers and ranchers, so this is going to be something that would be a little more adaptive just because as women we're not quite so physically strong as men.  So it might make it easier for us to use, even without a disability.  Just some things to mention.
Then the next image, please.
This is showing one of our farmers who's wheelchair bound, and he's being assisted into his John Deere tractor, which the assistance of a lift chair.  So he's able to transfer from one chair to the other chair.  Thus saving the energy.  And making it more safe transfer.  He's got hand controls in that tractor, so that he's ‑‑ since he's got limited leg mobility, or no leg mobility in this case, he can still run the tractor.  The lift system mounts to the outside of the machinery so it's not affecting the general use of the tractor.
He has adaptive tools he can use with one hand, so he can run the gas and the brakes with that one hand control.  We're going to put him with hearing protection device, because the machinery is very loud, and we don't want him to have an additional challenge of loss of hearing.  So we're going to try to protect his hearing.  And there's also GPS auto systems we can put in, and they just program it, and it's like those automated driving cars, it runs the field and they make sure everything is safe, so those are available.
And a lot of times we'll advocate for a rear view camera in the back of the tractor, because then they tote have to turn so much and they can see what's behind them.  It also helps with hooking up machinery, trailers, and things like that.  So those backup cameras are about $100, they're very easy to install yourself, and so it's something that we're all ‑‑ often going to advocate for our farmers to have, to one, save that constant turning, and just being more safe to be able to clearly see behind them.
We're going to hit the next image.  For any of you gamers, this is basically just steering wheels and pedals and joystick controlled equipment, like you might be using for gaming.  These can oftentimes be used not only to control the tractor, but maybe open the gate so they don't have to get down off the tractor to open the gate.  So these are just things that maybe a gamer would be using.  They have some use in the farming and ranching community too when they're hooked up officially.  For all my gamers out there.
Next image, this is an automatic gate opener.  You can imagine how much energy is extended getting on and off the tractor to open a gate.  Some of these are remote controlled, so they just, like you're going into your garage, you hit a remote control to go into your garage.  Some of these are considered a bump gate, where you barely bump them and they're designed to open up for you.  Some of them are a drive‑over gate, so there's different options.  We're trying to conserve energy and we're trying to keep them from ‑‑ from future injuries.  And if you're not in the farming and ranching community, what you don't think about is the reason we have gates is to keep livestock in.  Or out.  Depending on the situation.  So generally we're going to have a lot of livestock around the farmer or rancher, we don't want them to be injured as they're trying to get through the gate.  So that makes it a little more efficient so the farmer is staying on the tractor where they're more safe than where the cattle could push them over and cause further injury or worse.
Then we'll go to the next slide, so there's lots of little simple devices.  This, again, is like a little ‑‑ you'll see in the picture, it's a long pole with a clipper at the end of it, and squeeze handles, trigger handles like you'd see in a water hose sprayer, and that is used to clip any kind of things out of reach, maybe doing some pruning of trees or cutting berries, even sometimes there's short ones, they might use them for harvesting okra or something that's very spikey.  Might cut them, so it gives them a little bit more leverage for reaching without getting out of their seated position.  Again, something useful if you're a little bit ‑‑ you're not quite so tall and you could use something at your own house to trim things, that would be a useful tool for you as well.
All right.  So depending on the person's disability, we got a lot of folks that actually come to us straight out of the military.  So we work with a lot of veterans that have done their service, and now they're looking into getting into the farming and ranching community.  They're oftentimes still what I consider very young, in their early 30s or 40s, and oftentimes when they've been in the military, they come out with some type of injuries due to the nature of the work.  And so these are some prostheses that can help them do their farming and ranching tasks, and they're designed for those tasks of picking or holding or something so they may not have what we would think of as a normal hand‑like orthotic, or prosthesis, and it would look more like a claw or something that may tend to lend itself better for operating equipment on a farm.  And perhaps they would have another set of these for more everyday life living kind of tasks.  When they were working they might have different prosthetics.  Again, they're very expensive, but they definitely help to enhance mobility and help them to be able to do their task.
Okay.  Next slide, please.  We've got a farmer on a red tractor, and he is wearing a hearing ‑‑ what are those called?  I totally lost my thought.  To protect your hearing when there's loud noises.  And so he's got those on his ears, because the machinery is very loud, and so those ear ‑‑ I'm losing my thoughts here.  Just something to protect their hearing.  So a lot of people are challenged with hearing loss, and maybe they have some hearing and they certainly don't want to lose what they've got.  And certainly those folks that have no hearing loss want to protect their hearing, so they're not faced with hearing loss.
We have a lot of folks come in out of the military that have experienced hearing loss, because of the nature, again, of their jobs.  And our farmers and ranchers generally have some hearing loss, because again, they're working with heavy machinery that makes a lot of noise.  They're on those tractors eight or 10 hours a day, so sometimes we see a lot of folks that are having the challenges of dealing with hearing loss.  And so trying to protect those ears firsthand, especially for young children, that would be really important to keep from having those challenges later on.
And so there are some amplified hearing protections that sometimes will ‑‑ not only keep the machinery sounds down, but maybe they can still hear other things.  Then we have like LED lighting that may help with visual clarity, and I already mentioned those backup cameras, which are so useful for everyone, so even if you happen to be a person in a regular streetcar that you drive to work and stuff, and maybe it's an older model vehicle, I would highly recommend you look into getting a backup camera.  They're very easy to install if you're a little on the handy side, and if not, they can be easily installed by your mechanic and they're about $100, so they're very reasonable and add to the safety of your experience as a vehicle driver.
The next slide shows a gentleman walking, holding onto a rope, and he's pulling a cart.  And he's visually impaired, and so he's got this system where he's able to follow his route, so he is able to hold on to the rope and know if he's going from the house to the barn, or whatever, and it helps with his visual impairment.  So very simple modification, it's not something you can do when you're navigating being in town to the grocery store or something, but on the farm, then he can definitely be able to navigate that way.
I've seen farmers tie different knot patterns in their field rows so they know this row is corn, if it's two knots, and this row is cotton if it's three knots.  When it's really small, it's hard to just touch and feel and figure out what plant it is.  So sometimes they'll do a knot system to remind themselves what is exactly planted in that particular area.
We've got another farmer who is legally blind, and she has a sidewalk cord where she can drive her four‑wheeler and somehow she's able to stay on that ‑‑ I don't know how, but she does ‑‑ at least she's not running into trees as long as she stays on her sidewalk.  So she's done some adaptations there and still is running her farm, and she's in that average age we talked about, earlier, about 60.  She's pretty amazing.
The next slide has got some different feeders and waterers, so it's red devices with cups or bowls, orange device with a cup or bowl, and that is set up so that the farmer can use on a timer where every day at 4:00 the food comes out and a measurable amount, and sometimes those are even run off your phone on an app so that the farmer or rancher is not getting in and out of the vehicle again to feed and water.  And of course these are very small devices that are being shown now, but they have much larger devices, and so you may think how many cows can I feed with that?  These are just small ones, and they do come in multiple sizes.  We also have feeders that attach to the back of a pickup truck, or a tractor, and so the food is loaded in, hundreds of pounds at a time, and it can be dispensed to the animals without the farmer or rancher having to lift every small section of feed to the livestock.  So there's lots of different devices there that can help those folks out.
The next image, please.
This is a livestock chute.  I'm trying to think how to explain it.  It's basically a lot of metal, with an entry area, and it squeezes you in, the cattle that is, not you yourself.  It squeezes them within a large metal panel, for you guys that are visually impaired, and it holds them into place so the farmer can navigate with the livestock without fear of getting hurt themselves.  So oftentimes there's vaccinations, or immunizations that have to be given to livestock, if they're calves, they may have to be cut, they may have to be tagged with the ear tag.  There's a lot of different things.  So these are very comfortable for the cows, it's like a big hug from either side.  But the farmer or rancher is very safe, they go in that chute and they release them.  And so they're not harmed, and they're actually calmer because it's kind of like a big hug coming from either side, they're not being pinched.  It still keeps them from sitting or laying down so the farmer or rancher can do that medical maintenance for them.  Maybe they're getting ready to calf and the veterinarian may be checking them for that reason, so those kind of things.
Many of the farmers use a tagging system on their ears, and they can know that ‑‑ because after you get a hundred head of cattle, not all of them can be Betsy or Bacon ‑‑ that's cows, steak, whatever.  They have a tag with a number, so that indicates that if I look up tag number 33, 33 has already calved, they've already had their shots, so that way they can keep up with their livestock by the number of tags, and oftentimes those tags will have the name of the farm and ranch, so it identifies that livestock if they happen to get out.  So there's different ways to keep up with those livestock that way.  So they're getting really good care, because we're not having to second guess or give somebody two shots because one came through again.  So it's a much safer method of maintaining the health of our cattle.
The next image shows another steering wheel.  It shows a video screen, and it shows some plug‑in devices.  These are all just some GPS guided tours, tractor equipment, auto steering systems.  We talked earlier a little bit about the GPS, so they actually just set this much like you would set your GPS to go to a new town that you weren't familiar with, or someone's house you hadn't been to before, so it allows for precision farming and minimal manual output.  So it streamlines record keeping, we know exactly what's been planted and when.  It helps with inventory, it helps with task planning, so even these small mom and pop farms, they're really a lot more technology advanced than what people would think.  Gone is the day of the paper ledger.  They're much more in tune to a lot of recent software, because thinking about a farm or ranch, you're everything.  You're planting, you're harvesting, you're bookkeeping, purchasing, you're doing everything.  So as much as we can streamline, the better.  So a lot of families, one spouse may be the person that takes care of all the paperwork and another spouse may take care of all the feeding, or whatever.  There's a lot of chores that need to be done, so the technology definitely helps to streamline some of that stuff.  And keeps better records than if we were just keeping it in an old ledger like they did many years ago.
The next image has a telephone, a cell phone, and a tablet, and just showing, again, you can see on the screen where they have cattle pinpoints.  So on the telephone, the cell phone there's a little circle with a cow, and that's where we know where they've been fed or maybe they've been vaccinated or whatever.  So we can know what pasture they're in as to what's been going on.  So it's just a way of using those technologies to help manage the farm.  So it's different apps available that can help streamline those chores.
The next image, in the picture there's another table similar to the one I showed earlier that lifts up and down.  It's not a scissor design, but it still lifts up and down for working on equipment, or small hand tasks, or maybe processing food.  Vegetables or those kind of things.  Also in the image is a couple of wheelchair ramps to get up some steps, so just showing some of the modified equipment.  So having those things definitely makes it more accessible for everybody, I know you guys being in the disability field of work probably recognize, I was at a hotel in Austin the other day for a disability conference, and the steps to the hotel were two or three, and you were right in the door, but I took the wheelchair ramp because I had a suitcase and I didn't want to haul it up the stairs.  And it was ‑‑ I walked way down to the end, and around the corner, and back up.  I'm like, how inclusive is this when I'm walking so much farther than the average person to get into the building?  It wasn't very inclusive, even though I could navigate it, it was a lot more walking and a lot larger distance to come in and loop back around.  Not everything is as inclusive as they think it is.  I know I'm singing to the crowd here.  So trying to make things more accessible, barns and work spaces obviously are not, and so sometimes we need these ramps, some other things we can do is do like a raised garden bed or modular greenhouses.
My daddy just turned 81 years old, and he's a farmer.  Has been his whole life, he grew up as a kid on a farm, he was also an industrial blacksmith when he was still working, he's retired now.  But he still farms.  And he grows enough, he doesn't sell anything anymore, he grows enough to feed a small community.  He can't stop growing.  He went hungry as a child, so he always had a garden because they didn't want that experience again.  So he has finally, at 81, because he's not as mobile as he used to be, he's going to keep up with most people in their 60s, I'm going to tell you, but he finally has gone to raised garden beds.  He's got a bunch of 50‑gallon barrels he's had cut to a waist height, and he's gardening everything in these multitude of barrels.  He probably has 16‑20 barrels.  Still a large garden space than most people, but he's not having to get down on his knees, and bend, and lift.  He's got back problems, he's got a back insert thing that stimulates the spinal cord, so he's got his share of problems, but hey, he's 81 years old, right?  Is he going to give up farming?  No.  But we finally have talked him into doing this container gardening, basically, so he can continue what he loves.  He's going to be able to do it at a lot less risk of injury, and still be able to farm.  That's worked out really good.  Is that going to work good for anybody, even if you don't have a disability?  Absolutely.  The less we're on our knees and backs, it's a lot less chance of injury.  So those are good things to have.
His are not pretty, they're 50‑gallon barrels.  You can get really cute galvanized containers, like at Tractor Supply if you want to be cute and bougie, but the vegetables are going to taste the same.
There's also things like automated milking systems, seated mowers so they can sit down while they're mowing.  Every kind can of adaptation you might expect is definitely out there.  As we know, anybody with a disability does not look like the next person with a disability.  Even if we have two people in a wheelchair, their challenges are not going to be the same.
So we have to completely always be thinking about how do we adapt to this specific person, even though things may similarly work for somebody, they don't work for everybody.  And you guys already know that.
Okay.  Let's go to the next image.  The next image shows two people in wheelchairs that are working with gardens that are planted at waist level, and they're able to get the chairs right up to them.  This is actually in a greenhouse, and we see lots of seedlings where they're beginning the growth of their plants.  But a lot of people will grow a whole myriad of vegetables in a greenhouse.  We have a lot of hydroponic gardeners, which they don't even use soil, and so we've got some hydroponic farmers that grow tomato, or lettuce, or microgreens, a whole variety of things and they're all doing them at waist level so it's more accommodating and more inclusive.
If you're in the audience today and you have never really grown anything, you might try microgreens.  You can get those at some feed stores, you can get them off Amazon, and you basically just are growing those in water and within about a week you have enough to make a salad.  So that's really good for somebody just getting started.
If you live in town, I'm actually a farm girl, but I live in town, but I keep tomatoes and peppers and asparagus and, you know, a couple fig trees and things like that in my little garden in town, and I live right in the middle of town.  I have to fight with the deer because I have a lot of deer in my neighborhood, and try to keep cages around them because the deer like my vegetables.  But it's something that even with a very small parcel of land, even if you live in an apartment, you have a balcony, you can still grow some basic maybe herbs or tomatoes or something like that.  Don't discount if you don't have a space that you're not able to do it.  Most people can grow something.  And it's very rewarding to be able to eat whatever you grow.  Even if it's a small portion.
We're going to go to the next slide, we've got a gentleman on a smaller red tractor, and so he's going to ‑‑ this is for seated mowing and tilling.  Instead of having to push a tiller, he's able to sit on this big oversized tractor.  You guys that are visually impaired, it looks like an oversized riding lawn mower.  He's able to operate that.  If he has lower limb disabilities, he can have those gas and brake pedal adjusted to be hand operated as well.  I'm working with a farmer right now who, again, these farmers are so creative, but he's been running his tractor with a cane.  So he's pushing a cane on the brake and on the gas pedal.  That's not safe.  And so that cane could easily slip.  So we're working with some adjustment pedals that attach to the gas or brake pedals so they're more solid, they're not going to slip off, because the last thing we want him to do is get another injury or run into someone, or something because he's unable to stop with the help of his cane.  So we're going to help him with that adaptation.  We're in the process of that.
This is showing a cow being milked.  So there's a milk machine under the tits of the cow.  And so that's going to reduce the strain for manual milking, so it's definitely going to help people with lower limb disabilities.  So that automated milking system for dairy farmers with physical limitations.  There's also things for irrigation and fencing and adaptations, a lot of things that are going to make their chores more doable.  I'm not going to say easy, because being a farmer is never easy.  This is to milk the cow.  Once the tits are in the suction cups, the cow will be able to stand there and they'll be able to milk them and disconnect the cow and she'll go on and get her food.  They get very used to this very quickly.  It's how we get our milk and cheese, guys.  All the cream cheese y'all like.
Okay.  The next image, this is a big long sprayer that has water or sometimes they'll even put chemicals in it for fertilizer.  So this is a long ‑‑ it's probably covering 500 feet or longer, multisprinklers coming down onto the field, it's got a device that helps wheel it like wheels down the rows to help rotate it throughout the field.  And so this is something where the field is watered efficiently, because we can water a large area at a time.  New to farming and ranching you guys, is actually drones.  It's amazing what we're doing with drones.  We have a young farmer, he's like 35, he was in a car crash and he's in a chair now, and he is running a very successful drone business currently by doing fertilizers and pesticides with his drone for folks in the fields.  So in the past, we would have little small airplanes come over and crop dust the areas, so these drones are a lot more accurate because a crop duster was relying upon his vision and using a visual point, like am I so far from the tree, this is the farmer's pasture, maybe he scoops over it twice in an area, so these drones are actually set with GPS, and so they can very precisely go and distribute the chemicals, whether it be fertilizer, or pesticide, and help with that process.
I have another farmer that is a cotton farmer, and they were using the drones to check the cotton field for boll weevils.  You guys that are not familiar with cotton, boll weevils are very destructive to cotton, so we don't want the bough weevils, it's a beetle, on the cotton because it will kill it and we don't have T‑shirts and jeans and all the things we love cotton for.  So they were using the drone to go visually check to see, do we have boll weevils?  And they would fly the drone over the cotton and they were not seeing any bough weevils.  So they're like, yay, no boll weevils.
Then upon someone going out and visually checking, do we have boll weevils, they had a lot of them.  And they're like, wait, what's happening.  What they realized was the drone puts out so much wind when it circulates, it was knock can the boll weevils onto the ground, and then they were crawling back up.  So as soon as they were visually checking it with the drone, it looked like they had no boll weevils, because they were being blown off, and when they walked to the actual field, here of course the boll weevils have crawled back so.  So they had to take the drone, put the chemicals in it and ill the woe weevils.  It's not 100% accurate, but it's a good tool.
We have some farmers use the drones like when the cows are calving.  When they're having their babies and we don't want to get too close to the mamma cows because they're very protective, and they're more likely to harm you right after they've had a calf or with a young calf, the farmer is able to take the drone into the pasture and look for any of the mamma calves ‑‑ mammas and baby calves that have been born, so they can understand who all calved a calf last night T because in the springtime, early spring, February‑march, we're going to have hundreds of calves per farm being born in a week.  So they're always checking to see that the calves were successful ‑‑ the calves were successful.  So the drone use has been helpful for looking over the mamma cows and the calves.
I'll give you all a second to catch up.
The next image shows an occupational therapist helping a person with some knee problems.  So technology is obviously a great solution, but sometimes we have to have professional support when we do have an injury to help us rehabilitate through that injury.  So occupational therapists actually work with farmers because they got to realize that farming task is very specific to other daily tasks.  So they need to be able to adapt and recuperate in order to do their tasks they were doing prior to the injury.  So a lot of those services will help farmers and ranchers T. the occupational therapist help them to rehabilitate.
We take on a couple of three occupational therapy students each year.  They work with us during their capstone project, so these young individuals are about to start in the real world, so this is kind of their last stop before their real jobs.  And so it's really nice to be able to give these individuals kind of a look at what exactly is the challenges these farmers are facing, and where are we going to do to rehabilitate them?  They understand how the body works, we understand how they have to get on equipment, and so we work with them.  So it's a great opportunity, I call them kids, because they're all early 20s, I've got kids that age myself, but these young folks are able to be exposed to real‑world situations and be able to help folks.
Here at the office we actually have an occupational therapist on staff.  So every time we go out to a farm, we bring a disability specialist, we bring myself, we bring an occupational therapist, depending on the situation sometimes we bring an engineer that we have on staff.  And everybody kind of works together with their specialty to estimate kind of determine what exactly someone may need to continue their line of work with their now disability.
We're actually in the field, so we're going out there with our boots and jeans on, we're looking in the pastures, we're definitely what we call boots on the field.  We have a huge staff of folks that have an agriculture background.  And so that's not a necessary requirement to work with us, but definitely helps, because I have raised a lot of livestock and gardening, and it's good to have a good understanding of what we do.  So I'm not an expert in anything, but as a child, my first 20 years was on the farm, we raised bees, we raised catfish, we raised cattle, we raised pigs, and goats, and chickens and rabbits, and every vegetable, every fruit, every berry imaginable.  So I've got a good understanding of different agricultural businesses.  We raised worms, a lot of people don't realize, we have worm farmers in Texas.  So worm farmers are ‑‑ you're like, worm farming, that's weird.  But worms are very good for your soil, so even if you live in town, you can put worms into your soil and it helps to irrigate it.  The worm poop is sold for really nutritious fertilizer, and so that's really good.  And so also too, people like to fish.  And they like worms.  So there's lots of things they use the worms for, and we have people that do nothing but worm farm.  So you really never think about some of the different types of farming.  It's kind of surprising when you look into it, if you're not familiar with agriculture business.
The next little slide, we have financial assistance programs, grants and loans.  We are AgrAbility, but my sister group here within the office is called BattleGround to Breaking Ground, where we get ‑‑ it's open for anybody, but we are ‑‑ we mostly are catering to veterans.  And we are able to get them some assistance to get them trained and help them run a business plan, help them get started in the agriculture business.  And so we work with the USDA, which is ‑‑ we work with Texas Workforce Commission, So Texas Workforce Commission, we don't provide funding, we're ‑‑ we don't give you equipment, but we work with them, and we can help them navigate what your needs are.  We meet with them twice a month with going over each and every client case that's open.  And then we have help advocate for what the farmers and ranchers need.  These workforce folks are really great, but most of them aren't farmers or ranchers, so they don't understand, why is it you need this?  Help me understand why this would make this farmer safer, more productive, et cetera.
We have ‑‑ sometimes we have other folks involved that help the ‑‑ offset the farmers' costs.  We work with some engineering students in Texas that are also on their capstone projects, so about to graduate, and they will sometimes go out with us to the farm and see what the farmer needs, and they'll help with modifications.  So they might design a product to meet the needs of a specific disability, and then the farmer may offset some of the costs of the metal needed to build it, and then the students may provide the labor.  So there's different things we do that.
We work a lot with our local ag kids.  These are high school kids.  Because they're always looking for a project, they're learning how to weld, they're learning blacksmithing skills, and so sometimes our farmer just needs a couple steps added to a tractor.  And these kids are able to add those steps and then we already measured.  Can this farmer safely navigate four inches, or can they do six inches?  Let's get the steps at a level they can safely navigate, because again, what's easy for you to navigate six inches, somebody else may only be able to navigate four inches at a time.  So we're going to design the steps, it's a very simple thing, a step or two to get into a tractor, but we've got to do it where it's at an easy stretch for each farmer to be able to navigate.
Yes, Matthew.
>> MATTHEW DICKENS: I did want to let you know we're getting close to the end.
>> CINDY KOVAR: Thank you, good.  I've bin timing it.
Economic and community benefits, next slide.  Just, we're trying to keep farmers out there, that's who keeps us fed.  That would be the next slide.  We've got a gentleman with a men.
Economic benefits for our community, supporting disabled farmers, letting them continue to farm, reducing that stigma and isolation and encouraging diversity and representation in the agriculture field, helping to bring, build stronger and more resilient communities.  That would be the next slide.  We've got people working in a field.  So we've got a lot of farmers, like I said, we're older, they're training our new farmers to ‑‑ how to navigate the farming community.
The next slide has a farmer getting into another tractor from his chair.  And so this is just kind of some case studies, so on the benefit of time, again, just showing you we've got lots of different needs and meeting those needs to help farmers continue to farm.
Next slide has got some triangles of different people, very diverse people, and so we not only serve ‑‑ we serve everybody.  We serve people of color, we serve women, we serve men, we serve different disabilities, we serve the farmers' families, their workers, you don't have to own the farm, you just are working on the farm, so they're not really any restrictions to who we serve.  If you're working the land, trying to make a living at that, we're going to serve you.
The next slide has got a Hispanic farmer in the field with a baseball cap on, and so again, we're ‑‑ we've got a lot of veterans, they come in so excited that a lot of times they don't realize how expensive land is, and so we work with them on that, we're able to work with some of the older farmers that don't want to get rid of their land but are will to lease it, so the new farmers can lease the land, have the farming experience without the expense.  And then the older farmer is able to have his land utilized and not sit and be overgrown.  So it's really good partnerships that will work with some of those folks.
The next slide shows a woman in the field.  You guys, farming is not a man's field.  We have a lot of female farmers that their husbands don't help.  It's just the females are running the farm.  So I've got a hog farmer, a vegetable farmer, a microgreen farmer, that's just three that I can think of off the top that are female, totally run, no men are helping them.  It's great for men to help, but there's a lot of women doing it themselves.  So don't be afraid if you're a woman to do it by yourself.
Next slide, just to reiterate, we're ‑‑ this is a Hispanic lady and a Black farmer, with a bunch of vegetables in their hand, so we are definitely inclusive community driven, and we're trying to help people have those tools to be successful.
The next slide says, USDA, that's who supports us, that's who pays us.  We're not going out and charging farmers for these evaluations.  We support them on the telephone, in person, with questions or sometimes we just are like a think tank for them, what do you think about this?  So sometimes we'll just help them through the process of what they're trying to do with their farm.  So we serve that need.
The next slide shows a bunch of robots working in the field.  So we are actually working with Texas A&M, they have a robotic department that is now developing robotic tools to work in the field.  And so these folks are ‑‑ they're brilliant.  They are building robots, but they don't know nothing about farming.  So we've been a great partnership with them to explain to them, you can't do that.  You can't show up in the field with stilettos on, you've got to wear boots.  Those kind of things.  You'd be surprised.  These things are weeding, they're getting rid of the weeds, planting, harvesting, and so they're actually working on a program where they're developing these robots, and farmers can rent them rather than have the huge expense of owning them.  So that's another project we're working on, is trying to work more with the robots in the field.
The next slide just says, what's going on in the future?  We've got some farmers and a sunset, so we've got a lot of AI robotic systems, we've got wearable devices, we've got remote operation and machinery.  Education outreach, we have a lot of peer‑to‑peer networks.  We have ‑‑ where our farmers and ranchers can communicate with each other, so they're like, oh, I have this problem, I have the solution, what can we do?  Just having people in the field they can use as peer advocates is very helpful.  So we work with those folks too.
And then again, if they're trying to get into the field, they don't have a good business plan, we help them with that.  Because if we're going to help you with funding from TWC, Texas Workforce Commission, you've got to make money.  Maybe not the first or second year, but you've got to be on the goal to make money in the community of farming or otherwise they're not going to support you.
The last ‑‑ down to one page here, Texas AgrAbility, our logo.  We're just looking at trying to advocate, support, invest, raise awareness.  I would highly encourage you to follow our ‑‑ this is shameless plug, but follow our Facebook page, our ‑‑ ask for it to be included in our newsletter, because every week at least a couple times a week we're showing you a new tool, a cute little farm fact on what ‑‑ maybe things you didn't know, like a trivia.  We're showing you recipes to use with what's in season right now.  A lot of those tools and stuff obviously are made for farmers and ranchers, but what if you're having some need around your house?  Maybe you're not using that tool for gardening, but a lot of times there's kneelers and things like that.  It's a great place to see a lot of resources and just on a Facebook page.
My last panel question and answers, I'll let you all have any of those, and I'll throw up my contact page for anybody that wants to have that information.  So if you'll go to the last slide, there's my contact.  You can email me and I'll just say got it, and I'll send it back and it has all our links for the newsletter and Facebook, so even if you just say, hey, Cindy, I was in your presentation, send me that stuff, and I'll just send you a quick thanks and everybody is already going to be in my signature line.
Did I do good, Matthew?  All right.
>> MATTHEW DICKENS: Wonderful job.  I think there's some questions for you.  And we'll look at some of the audience questions as well.
One of my questions was related to people who are really not sure if farming is the right fit for them.  Because maybe their disability might be too severe.  How could you help those people? 
>> CINDY KOVAR: That's a great question.  Definitely you would need to send me an email and set up a telephone conference where we can visit.  There's going to be something out there for everybody.  So maybe you're not working the actual land, but what if you want to run microgreens?  What if you want to do a cottage industry like baked goods?  Or honeys, or essential oils, or handmade soaps, or any of those kind of things are all options.  So don't say, I can't do something because I've got a disability or challenge, we're just going to try to lend you in a direction that's going to make you successful.
I had a lady the other day who wanted to have cattle and she has 12 acres of land.  She wanted to make a living on cattle.  That's not enough acreage to make a living from cattle.  But she could have one cow for beef or milk for herself.  But didn't realize that's not even enough acreage.  So we redirect, don't go buy 10 cows and you don't have enough room for them on that 12 acres, because cows take a lot of acreage.  So we help you navigate that.
>> MATTHEW DICKENS: It's good to know that for that kind of support.
My next question is, I guess they're going to be taking ‑‑ we'll be giving contact information and you would be able to help them with getting in touch with technology.  How long does it takes for that technology to arrive or to do all that evaluation? 
>> CINDY KOVAR: So let me just ‑‑ I don't know who all of our visitors are from.  If everybody is just from Texas or we have out of state folks.  If you're in Texas, we can work with you.  If you're not in Texas, I would put you in touch with the folks that are in other states.  If you are wanting some assistance from TWC, unfortunately, it takes about two years for them to fund you and get you the items.  A lot of times it's just like, hey, again, the backup camera, perfect example.  $100, most people can save up for $100, and that sometimes can be life‑changing.  A lot of our gardening tools, if we take something as simple ‑‑ they have pool noodles, they also have them for wrapping pipes.  By putting those on a handle it's going to make the grip easier.  That's a $3 fix.  It depends on what you're having challenges with.  We can at least maybe something you can fund yourself, because it's $3, versus a big equipment like a chairlift which may take them a couple years to get the funding to do it.  So unfortunately, TWC is very slow, but I always like to say, hey, if you are saving up for $20,000 for this lift, how many years would it take you to save up for that?  Versus wait for it?  That's a weird way of thinking of it, but it eases the blow a little bit that way.
>> MATTHEW DICKENS: We have questions from the Q and A audience? 
>> MELINDA CROCKOM: It looks like I just have one question for you, Cindy.  You might have already answered this.  It's from Cynthia.  And she is saying, can I sinned an email to set up a Zoom appointment?  I am a female disabled veteran transitioning into farming.
>> CINDY KOVAR: Absolutely.  She can ‑‑ if she wants to have a Zoom, we can do a Zoom, about it we can do an old fashioned telephone call too.  That's just as easy.  Those options are there.  I've got openings if not this week, but probably first of next week we could get her in.  We say busy, but I'll get you in.  It won't take that long.
>> MELINDA CROCKOM: That's the only question I have in the Q and A.  Good job.
>> MATTHEW DICKENS: I do have one more question.  What would you say would be the average age for farmers?  You said about 50s, 60s, but with all of this new technology, is that age issue causing any kind of issues with these kind of programs, or is there any training that has to happen?
>> CINDY KOVAR: Average age is 60, so that is correct.  So a lot of the farmers have gotten really good at technology, and we have some of them that, wow, they're still on paper.  And so it makes it more challenging.  They've been doing this for 40 years, they're not really wanting to change.  And then a lot of times they'll have a young son or grandson or granddaughter, whatever, come in, and they'll help them with some of those things.  Because obviously staying up with the times with any type of business is really important.
Something else, and I know we're on the cusp of leaving, but something else, I will have to say that having us come in and look at your situation and your task, I like to put it this way ‑‑ if you came over to my house, Matthew, and you said, "Wow, your house is great, but have you thought about moving your sofa over here?"
And I ponder that later in the evening, and the next day I move the sofa, and Heim like, man, was he right.  The whole living room looks much better with that one thing changed.  So a lot of times ‑‑ I say that because it's a really simple‑to‑understand examples, a lot of times we come in and we're like, Matthew, what are you doing here on the farm, have you thought about doing this?  And so, for example, we saw a hog farmer, one of our female farmers, she got a terrible back, terrible knees, she's lifting 50‑pound bags of hog food all day long.  And I look over to the side and her pasture, she's got a bunch of simple wooden pallets, and there's tons of them.  Probably 30 of them stacked there.  And they were pretty close to her barn, and I said, have you ever thought about putting those in the barn, at about waist level, or a little below waist level and put all your food on those pallets, so when you lift it, you're not lifting it all the way from the ground up into your trailer?  And so a very simple thing, because she could drive her pickup in, there load them off the back of her pickup at about waist level, and now retrieve them from the pallets.  So she was like, the whole couch example.  Never thought about that.  Now that did not cost her a penny, cost her a little bit of time, and it's just a new way of looking, what she's already been doing for 20‑something years, now this task has gotten more simple.
When she started farming she did not have the bad knees and back, so it wasn't a thing she thought about, but now that she does, it's pretty much life‑changing with a very simple adjustment.  So, yeah, that's definitely some of the things we'll help with.
>> Thank you so much for your time.  We're out of time, so if people have more questions, just contact Cindy.
>> CINDY KOVAR: Email me.  Thank you so much.
>> Thank you so much, and have a great rest of the day.  Bye bye.
>> CINDY KOVAR: Bye bye.
>> Recording stopped.