Apr 22, 2020

Penn State Facebook page for Latinx agriculturalists made available

Penn State Extension is connecting with Latinx agriculturists in essential food businesses to provide timely outreach and science-based education on farm production, food safety and workplace risk management.

Spring is a critical season for Penn State Extension to engage on a regular basis with agricultural producers and farm employees, and this outreach is especially important considering Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s current stay-at-home orders, organizers said.

The initiative is an outgrowth of the new Penn State Extension Latinx Agricultural Network advised by Latinx community leaders. As part of this effort, faculty in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and extension educators set up a Facebook page in Spanish, found here.

The page directs Latinx stakeholders to innovative, knowledge-based resources in Spanish that can be accessed easily during this period of social distancing.

Educational formats will include interactive webinars, self-paced online courses, highly visual “Learn Now” videos, and seasonal updates and extension articles. Highlights include the following:

– A series of new dairy webinars on transition cow management that will build on prior applied dairy management webinars in Spanish.

– Vegetable and small-fruit articles that share on-farm tour experiences along with production technologies such as high tunnels.

– Timely tree-fruit news releases and self-paced training resources for orchard employees and new growers.

– Timely field and forage crop recommendations and sentinel plot reports.

– Produce-safety education manuals, videos and other training resources that farmers can use to train small groups of employees.

– A multi-team series of farm-to-consumer food system articles to minimize risk related to COVID-19.

For more information, contact Maria Gorgo at [email protected].

Spring is a critical season for Penn State Extension to engage on a regular basis with agricultural producers and farm employees, and this outreach is especially important considering the current stay-at-home orders. Photo: Penn State University