MSU Agrability Program
Print
EmailFebruary 25, 2025
MI Ag Ideas to Grow With website
Learn more about the Michigan AgrAbility Project. This statewide program helps farmers with a disability or injury continue farming. With the use of assistive technology to help make farm tasks easier and more comfortable, farmers are able to continue their livelihoods and help reduce the risk of secondary injuries. Watch this session to learn more about the project and what the program entails.
The 2025 MI Ag Ideas to Grow With conference was held virtually, February 24 - March 7, 2024. This two-week program encompassed many aspects of the agricultural industry and offers a full array of educational sessions for farmers and homeowners interested in food production and other agricultural endeavors. More information can be found at: https://www.canr.msu.edu/miagideas/.
Video Transcript
I will be talking about AgrAbility. Again, my name is Samantha Wolf and I'm an Ag and occupational health educator for extension. I'm going to give you a little bit of context about my background and where I come to this from, and hopefully that helps give a little more context for the rest of the talk. I was born and raised in Benziee County there in the map in the middle. It is outside of Traverse City, and it's a pretty rural place. There's a lot of fruit grown here. I drove past orchards on my way to school. There were always tractors, you know, that we'd have to pass. And my dad is a tire guy. So from a young age, he made sure that I was comfortable driving just about anything. So there I am with one of our big tractors. Um, but during school, I realized I wanted to get as far from here as I possibly could. So I studied Chinese and I studied abroad in Beijing, and that led me to my first role after college, which was with the Chinese Academy of Agriculture Agricultural Science. I did translations from Chinese to English about agricultural and agrotech concepts and some pretty new designs and things that were happening around, like, early 2010. And it was really interesting. But I was learning, like in Chinese, learning it looked like, all in my head and behind a screen, kind of. But I was really interested and it kind of stuck with me. So I moved back to the US. I was a little too far from home at that point. And I moved to New Jersey where I did an Americor program that focused mostly on environmental education, but it had a demonstration farm, and they were doing regenerative research. So I was still intrigued by this, and I'm getting a little bit warmer, getting a little bit warmer and continuing to learn more and more about agriculture. Then in 2020, I moved back to Michigan, and I moved back to my same Benzie County, and I now work out of that office, and I'm really proud of that now that I've kind of had those stepping stones as far from home as possible and then kind of making my way back. So finally, I was able to get a job during the summer of 2020, and I worked on a rotational beef grazing farm in my hometown. This was just a really transformative summer for me. I started to understand the concepts that I had been reading about for almost a decade at that point. And I got to see it all in practice. And I worked so hard that summer. There were times that it wasn't even dark out yet, and I was going to bed. So I got it. I did everything in the process from spreading manure and cutting hay to ear tagging on day one of a calf's life, helped castrate, and then helping move the cows across the field, seeing the plants regenerate. And then even the day before my birthday taking cattle to market, which was kind of a tough one, and I thought maybe farming isn't for me, but I really enjoy supporting this work. So that was meant to be a seasonal role. And after about a year, I took on a role with the MAEAP program, which is environmental verification program administered by MDARD. And I worked at the Grand Traverse Conservation District, and I visited farms throughout Grand Traverse in Antrim County, kind of going over the checklist of the generally accepted agricultural management practices or GAAMPs and kind of just observing farmers in their element to kind of in the background. And then in 2023, when this role came out, I was really excited and jumped at the opportunity to work with extension and to help people in kind of a more health oriented way. So why that matters? The first experiences that I had in this field were both at Duke Farms, which had accessible garden beds in their community garden, too. I just thought that was so interesting. At the time, it was pretty progressive for them to do that, and people would come out who wouldn't have otherwise been able to crouch or stoop on the ground and work in the community garden, but they were able to grow food, and we donated it all to a food pantry. And then even more kind of impactful, when I was a MAEAP technician, I put together a Farmer resource fair, and we did it on the first weekend in May. So almost no one came, but it was a really nice event. All of the people who were there as resources got to know each other quite well, and there was a couple there who had been clients of AgrAbility and they were there to represent the program. She had had hip replacement, I believe, and he had a TBI, and they had livestock. So they had several different approaches that they were working from. And Ned with AgrAbility we'll talk more about later, helped create a sheep handling alley and a fence line feeder for them. They also got waterers that didn't freeze. They weren't lugging hoses around and a number of other things. And they just said that it had changed their lives. And I was like, Wow. So after that, I started telling everybody about AgrAbility even prior to working in this program. And that was because while observing farmers while I was out in the field, um, During me uh, sort of the checklists and stuff, I saw all different sorts of things. I saw people doing dangerous things. I saw people on their tractors all day or walking all around the farm, and that causes a lot of fatigue, um, and we know not just from my own observations, but from the data, every five years in the census of agriculture, we see the producer average age creep up just a little bit, and we are now approaching 60. Um I was up in 2022 to about 58 years. So this is something that's happening. It's a trend all across the country. And AgrAbility does work with aging conditions. We know that taking a rest or a break or if you have a doctor's appointment or something, that can be the day that you need to harvest, and you don't have an opportunity to take that break. I see a lot of people who would push themselves through pain and work through it. We know it's difficult to accept that sometimes we need to slow down or make changes, but smaller injuries can really stack up and become something bigger. It's not necessarily something that you have to live with, but we can help find solutions. Um, and we know that the health risks can be exacerbated by long hours. So with my own experiences, again, too, moving back after about ten years living somewhere else, seeing my parents and my family members aging, like we used to cut wood, mow acres of lawn, even gardening has kind of changed and evolved how I see my parents doing these things. And the more that I learn about assistive technology and different ways of accommodating mobility issues and chronic conditions, the more that I see them getting a little bit more joy out of still continuing to do these tasks, it's been really fun and interesting to help make these evolutions in my own family and my own life. I'm excited to share more with you. The overview of this program, I know we started a little bit late, so I feel like I'm a little behind, but I'll try to catch up without talking too fast. I will go over some statistics on farming and disabilities, 20 years of data from our program. A few considerations for your own routine, our services, assistive technology, and some success stories, and then how to access them and, of course, our evaluation. So understanding AgrAbility. Whether you are a grower or ag worker with an injury, illness or an aging condition, Michigan AgrAbility provides direct services to help you keep farming. Our mission is to help farmers with disabilities or physical challenges continue their way of life. We want to improve quality of life, independence, and farm productivity for anyone with a physical, cognitive or sensory disability. This is a national program that was started in 1990 in the Farm Bill. It is operating in 21 states and operates with USDA funding. It's always operated as a partnership between a land grant university and a nonprofit serving sorry, a disability serving nonprofit and a land grant institution. And there are different approaches that people take across the different states. But overall, we're looking at quality of life, direct services on farms, training, and yeah. We work in Michigan, Easter Seals MORC and they again, work across the state with people with disabilities. Looking at injury in agriculture, um, we know that OSHA statistics across the country are under reported for farms because any business with fewer than 11 paid employees isn't required to report on injuries. This data comes from Michigan's um, Office of Environmental no, sorry. I always mix that up. Occupational and environmental Medicine division at MSU, and they do this reporting working directly with hospitals, doctors' offices, and urgent care facilities all across the state, and they even have news alerts set for farm incidents. So looking at the left table here, bring your attention kind of to the top few items. Cows account for nearly one in three farm injuries. Even if you know your cows, there's risk because they are so big and they are strong. Sometimes they have maternal instincts. When I reflect on my time, you're tagging those day old babies, I think about how mama did not want us there. Not to mention, sometimes it's muddy or slippery and it can be easy to be in the way. I understand from firsthand experience how this is one of the more common things and I realized quickly how much I had been doing unsafely. But the GAAMPs or generally accepted agricultural management practices don't address how animals are handled. They talk about manure and environmental impact and composting and all of that. But there are just general things we know like respecting the flight zone, but it's something to just keep in mind, particularly if your mobility is compromised, but just in general too. Then there are also tools that we can suggest through AgrAbility and even working with our beef and dairy educators to make sure that you're working safely with cattle. Um next, tractors and non tractor machines account for about one in four farm injuries. Reiterating the need for proper safety training, proper use of PPE, routine safety checks on those machines, and even rollover protective systems and seat belts. Super important, easy to not do if you're getting on and off, but definitely can be a game changer, if there is some sort of incident. Also speaking of the word incident, there's a movement in the health and safety industry to not call it an accident because something that is preventable sometimes is more of an incident, which is quite heavy, but there are some reports at OEM's website at OEM dot msu dot EDU about each of these hazards, and they have some safety information and preventative measures. Some of these have also been translated to Spanish. So um, although a smaller proportion falls are also up there and they are often preventable as well with non slipped surfaces, proper footwear, et cetera. Um, and then finally, down at the bottom, we have about one in five people who sorry, one in five incidents that are caused from other. And this just kind of underscores the nature of farm work and possible improvements in farm safety measures or changes in workforce conditions. Um, excuse me. On the right, we see I'm so sorry. This is all falling apart right here. On the right, we see a change in the statistics 2020-2021. There was a decrease in the number of injuries in Michigan. Although across only two years, it's difficult to tell exactly what this might be contributed to or attributed to. Zooming out a little bit, looking at statistics across the country. We see that Michigan is in the middle of the lineup of disability rates. This is data 2008-2016. The most common issues for individuals were considered physical and hearing disabilities. There's no information here on why, but about 20% of farmers were shown to have a disability. Now we're getting back into the area where I'm more comfortable. Here we have Michigan AgrAbility clients. This is a heat map of the number of clients all across the state. There are only four counties where we haven't worked with anyone and we're looking at about 1,100 people over 2025 years. On the right, we have the clients that Ned has worked with, and we commit to seeing at least 150 clients per year at this point. Word of mouth is one of the biggest ways that we hear about new clients and it's often from relatives or neighbors. Next, looking at the clients that we work with by industry. This is not necessarily because livestock is the number one cause of injury as shown in the previous slide, but it may be that these types of farm tasks require different assistance or maybe livestock farmers are just more assertive and reach out to us more. It could also be because of that word of mouth. But I show this to highlight the fact that just because you have this or that type of farm, it doesn't mean that we aren't comfortable with it. My background, again, is in fruit and orchards, but Ned grew up on a dairy farm and he's comfortable across all industries, especially after 25 years. And now looking at conditions by category, far and away, arthritis is the most common. It's often co occurring alongside other conditions. We report up to three disabilities per client, but this is a common condition that's often part of aging and a staff person specifically conducts arthritis screenings. If anyone exhibit symptoms of those, um, they will be included. Looking at these numbers, arthritis accounts for about half of our clients, and then the rest after injuries is a pretty even split. So injuries are about 23%, and that includes musculoskeletal, joint, spinal, and traumatic brain injury. And then there's, again, the split between sensory impairments, amputations, neurological conditions. Throughout the years, again, we've worked with all types of conditions, and please remember that nothing is too big or small. Your story and your farm matter, and we want to hear from you, and we want to find ways to help you keep on with your livelihood. Um, we're looking here at causes of disabilities far and away. Once again, chronic non incident related is number one, but that tracks because we had so many folks who showed signs of arthritis. Charts can also be deceiving, so I'm going to acknowledge that and then we're going to change the scale here and get rid of the chronic category. And then this shows that vehicular incidents non agriculturally related is our next most common cause of injury or disability. And again, that's about 23%. Tractor and farm machinery are close split after that and then military and from birth. Again, this is just kind of to share a snapshot of the diversity of reasons that people might seek assistance from our program. I won't get too far into this for now, but I would like to in the future. So if you find it helpful, please put that in the evaluation. Um, joint pain is very, very common. For example, one in four adults report knee pain, and I've recently attended a few different body mechanics sessions that talked about ergonomics and farm work and how to care for your body while still doing physically demanding work. This is one of the things that came up in that. This is the joint by joint approach and it showed this image on how the major joints support both stability and mobility and everything is really connected, and they alternate as you go up the body. So if you have knee pain, an X ray might show that you don't have arthritis, but tightness in your hip or lack of strength in the ankle might require you to move differently which puts more strain on your knees. It's important to maintain strength and flexibility on the mobility joints to support the stability joints and vice versa. Everything is so interconnected. So if you're doing heavy lifting without much hip flexibility, that might put excessive strain on the knee or even stiff boots could kind of make you unknowingly overload your knees. So something that I might suggest for the ankles. I do this now while I'm eating breakfast in the morning is spelling the alphabet or counting to ten by drawing those numbers or letters with your ankles while you're eating. And that just kind of gets you going for the day and starts with a little bit of movement. Um, it feels really good. It's a nice exercise and something easy to do. But there are other little videos on YouTube, of course or your preferred social media, and I would like to offer that MSU offers a chronic pain self management course that might be of interest is six weeks designed to help people take an active role in managing chronic pain. Just Googling MSU Chronic Pain should bring that up, or you can find it through the canr dot msu dot EDU website. But again, if you have chronic pain, I'm just here to encourage you to call your doctor and see if you can address that before it's too late and you might need a joint replacement or something. You never know, but stretching and exercise can definitely help get a bit further before that happens. So services and support, we'll talk about assistive technology next and then I'll show a national resource available online to learn more about assistive technology and then outline our staff and our work. Assistive technology refers to any device, equipment, or system that helps individuals with disabilities perform tasks that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. It enhances functional capability, enables greater independence, and improves quality of life. Can anybody think of any assistive technologies that they might have used or know about? Can just drop it in a chat or mute. A few that come to mind for me quickly are glasses, hearing aids, walkers, even a cane, ergonomic tools or something with smaller handles for women, automatic door openers, and even the golf carts that I drove as a kid are now a mobility aid for my mom because she lives on four acres and she has a harder time covering it all by foot. Again, assistive technology can make farm work easier, not just if you have a diagnosed disability, but also if you have aging conditions or if you have chronic pain. So I encourage you to scan this QR code or type in the URL if you are able to. Take a moment to follow along, or if you do scan it, I encourage you to find something that might be of use for you and help fulfill what you're doing. But I'll go through one example that I really like and think would be great to have at my house. Um, so when we scan the QR code, the database comes up, and we see all of these different categories of different assistive technologies that are suggested by the National AgrAbility Project. I'm looking for things to help with outdoor mobility. Oops. So once I click that, this drop down list appears. We're looking at outdoor walking and navigation, wheelchairs and accessories or personal mobility vehicles. I'm interested in my icy sidewalk. Click this and we've got canes and walkers, accessories, non slip surfaces, walking and location aids, paths, ramps, and snow and ice removal. Obviously, that's what I've been needing the past few months. Then once you click that, all of these different options come up. There's a lot of different opportunities here for different ways to move snow other than just a regular shovel. The To power shovel is what I'm particularly interested in. I can't believe I don't own this yet, but I love it. Then once you click the final item, the description will come up. The cost range, this only costs $130 and there at the end of the description, it says the shovel can reportedly clear up to 300 pounds of six inch deep snow per minute. I find this incredible and I wish so much that I had had it recently. It also on each device shows the limitations that are addressed by the product. I will help out with strength and endurance, the back, et cetera. There's also an opportunity with the database to use a search feature. So if you're doing N syrup, for example, these are a couple of different things, and there are a few others that come up, but it's really comprehensive. It has thousands of items on it, and it might help you find something that meets a particular need. So here's our team. From left to right, we've got Ned. He's been a part of the program for 25 years and he really embodies the program. His degree is in agricultural engineering and he is certified as an assistive technology professional. He does on farm evaluations to identify pain points and solutions. He identifies needs and works with people directly to solve them through assistive technology. I'll have some examples of this coming up here in just a few minutes. Then there's Cade. Cade is not actually part of the AgrAbility staff, but he is a client who works at an MSU facility in southwest Michigan. So Ned helped outfit him with an all terrain wheelchair. He also has hand controls and uses a zero turn mower, and he helps with pruning and spraying at the facility. He loves the work. He was in a car accident as a teenager and was really excited to get into FFA and has been just really enthusiastic and wonderful working on the farm. Um, on the right, we have Bev on the farthest right, that is, and she does a lot of our outreach and social media and then Andrea is in the middle. Andrea works with farm workers, and she does those arthritis screenings that I mentioned previously. Here she is in action. Andrea's background is as a certified occupational therapy assistant, and she has the added bonus of speaking Spanish. So her assessments run through ergonomics, range of motion, stretching exercises, and using hot and cold therapy, there's pain. She also provides a free gift for everyone that she works with, whether it's a back brace for someone standing on a line all day or gloves for anti vibration or working outside, pruning. She also has insults, other things that have been very popular. And she will work with large groups or one on one, but she'll go in and give practical tools for people throughout their work. And sometimes Ned and Andrea will work together. So the gentleman here, I believe it's the same person, was having difficulty with back pain. And so after kind of an overview, Excuse me. Um, Andrea called Ned in and they worked together to help provide him with this electric push broom. So he was having issues with the repetitive motion of sweeping, and you can see that his posture has changed dramatically between the two images. Um let me see the comment here. Thank you so much, ****. Um, yes, I believe I've never heard of the digital pill dispenser, but that sounds really neat. I'll read the comment for the recording. Continuing to garden is a big help for people suffering from dementia related issues. Oftentimes, our mother would keep working if she was taking her medicine. There's a digital pill dispenser that helps by sending reminders to both caregivers and family and the one with the ailment. That's so true. Smartphone apps can be a huge assistance, even with, like, turning on and off lights in the barn or in the house. That's something that didn't even realize was a great technology, little piece of technology that's kind of built into your phone, too, possibly. Um, moving on here. So again, we know that sometimes these changes can be hard to make. But I'd like to highlight again, that the older I get, I know why we're resistant to change, I'm starting to get it. But if we suggest things that aren't going to help or aren't going to be worth making that change, it doesn't meet our mission, our approach to assistive technology is to approach it with a smile. So we're looking at safety. We're analyzing that both yours and anybody else around you, making sure it's safer for everyone involved on the farm. Money, if you're losing out at all because of being compromised in any way, this is going to hopefully help out with that independence, doing the important farm tasks and making sure that you like what you're doing. Oops. Jump slides. Then again, expense to make the improvements. Some of these changes can be expensive, but we do have our best offer. The USDA grant funds are not able to pay for assistive technology, but we do have a lot of different ways that we partner with other organizations to make sure it's covered. So if it's expensive and you're not willing to make that change, it's not what we're going to suggest. We're going to find something that's a little bit better overall, make you smile. Here are some examples of assistive technology. This is a backup camera. It is mounted, in this case, on a UTV, and sometimes they do have a magnet to be mounted. They also can have an app. Again, you can use a smartphone or an iPad if you need a bigger screen, and they often have indicators and red and green in case you're getting too close to something and to make sure that you're coming in at the right angle. I didn't know this is something I needed until I got a new car, and I just feel so much safer and more confident with it. Um, if it's covered, I feel a little bit lost relying on my mirrors. I can still do it, but I know that my field of vision is really reduced. The average person can only turn their head to 60-80 degrees in either direction. Especially if you lack flexibility in your neck, you might not be able to turn around without getting out of your seat, which also affects reaction time. These images are from a presentation from a PhD student with national agrability, but I think it's really, really neat what he did here. It shows the field of view using both mirrors and the camera. The mirrors are blue, camera is orange. These are five by five squares. And together, it just shows how much more you can see. Um, and it's so important for safety of those around you on the farm and just kind of in general. But you can be so much more confident backing up knowing that there's nobody in that orange area that you might not have been able to see. Here we have two different examples. We have a low tech solution that again is less expensive on a flatbed, there's a fold down ladder. Climbing up, rather than maneuvering your way up there, you can just use these steps and there's a handle to get up onto the truck and then also jumping down. It's not good for anybody's knees, it helps you both ways. This is something that we will typically put on just about any piece of equipment, making sure that clearance is okay. Maybe a fold up or just adding one extra step to a tractor because if you have any issues with balance, it can be harder to climb up into the tractor or other machinery. The tractor on the right is one of my favorites. You saw this example last year at the National Conference, and it just really has it all. The user uses a track chair to get around his farm, excuse me. But he's able to transfer onto that yellow chair and use a lift to get up into the tractor. It has a rollover protective system and a seat belt. He has a backup camera there and hand controls because he does not have use of his legs. It also has a jiffy hitch on the front and I believe the back so that he's able to change implements without getting in and out of the tractor. He can really do it all once using the tractor. This is something that could be pretty pricey, but we, again, work with primarily Michigan Rehabilitation Services, which is our state's vocational rehabilitation organization, and their whole mission is to keep people in the workforce. So they will commit a lot of money to make this happen. And if you're willing to do a little bit of paperwork or maybe a lot, this is something that we tend to do pretty regularly. Next is an exoskeleton. I'm demonstrating it at an event on the left, and then this is an example of its use on the right. It's kind of an niche thing. But the blue lines going down our bodies are spring loaded and it's designed to keep you so the person working on the horse is in a neutral position. But with those springs, it's pushing force against her upper thighs, and that's she's bent over, but it's not putting strain on her back. She had been having really bad back pain. And with this, she's able to continue her work as a farrier. These can cost $2000 to $4,000. But again, it's something that can be covered by machine rehab services. Excuse me, if it helps you keep working. Um, there are also exoskeletons that can be used for arm and shoulder support. Here on the left, that is demonstrating pruning and harvesting, excuse me, using the exoskeleton supporting his arms. And then on the right, we've got a gentleman who is pruning some vines and he's using electric pruners. So he doesn't have to do that repetitive ripping motion. It can be really difficult for your hands if you have arthritis or carpal tunnel or anything like that. This client was entangled in his hay baler in 2018 and lost his arm below the elbow. Among other things, we equipped him with an upgrade to his personal utility vehicle. He went from this ATD on the left to a side by side on the right and it has seat belts and more stability, steering wheel. It's easily operated with one hand and allows him to continue doing his work, checking on pastures and cattle. He also has new one handed tools, new gate locks, and bin level indicators, and then a new hay bale accumulator and grapples. This will all help him keep farming for much longer and help with his success. So those were some examples of the assistive technology we may have used, but this also shows some pretty clear impacts, and we will talk now about a couple of the individuals we've worked with. So you can hear some real stories too. Um, this is a couple. There were some of the first folks that I met when I started in this role. After many years waiting, um, this gentleman had a heart transplant several years ago now. He has mobility challenges, screws in his shoulders, both knees replaced, and he is a war veteran. So his injury happened in 1992, leading to all of these various health issues. His wife has arthritis in her knees and hips. So for both of them, getting up from a kneeling position is nearly impossible, and they both fatigue quite easily. But they really wanted this lavender farm on their family property. It used to be cherries, but this was what they wanted to do in their retirement, and they still wanted to tackle this. Um, you can't see it. There's so much lavender on this farm. It's a little bit cropped out. But with funds from our supporters at the agricultural fraternity at MSU, we helped outfit them. Again, this is a smaller farm. So we're looking at smaller, more affordable technologies. They don't have any big tractors or anything that I know of. So they needed to go along these rows and tend their lavender plants. With these carts, they have an adjustable height seat and a little basket to keep all your tools and they can just roll along. They don't have to kneel at all. They do have to bend over a little bit, but they can also lower the sat if that's the case. Then, Ned also designed this cart to help move the blower and blow leaves off of the rows here. This was just a huge game changer for them. They were so happy when we helped set all of this up, and I'm excited to see them this upcoming spring. It'll be their first full season using this equipment. And here you pause that, but tell you about it. This is Caleb. He has cattle. They are a lifelong passion of his, and he experienced traumatic brain injury during work in 2013. So he had already downsized his operation to make it manageable by the time that he met Ned and learned about AgrAbility. But he sought us out because he tires so quickly and he needed to find a way to help keep up. So Ned worked with the masters, excuse me, the mechanical engineering students at MSU to design a project. You can, of course, get commercial gates that open and close with the touch of a button, but they can be really expensive. So we wanted them to design something that's an automatic gate opener that can match commercial level performance and be universal across as many gates as possible and keep costs only about two to $250 and use a remote control. And also, an important thing, finding all of the parts at something like a hardware store. This is powered by the touch of a button, and this was a demonstration, so there is somebody in the video, but he is able to use his phone, I believe, to manage his gates. When I was asking him for permission to use this story, he wrote back and said, Many people in the world take for granted the ability of mobility. But as a person with mobility issues due to my spine, the ability to keep my cows secure is a constant battle. I now have the ability to open and close my property at any time from the comfort of my couch. It's not only helps me physically but emotionally. The anxiety of having livestock out is increased severely when you have physical limitations that affect how you can contain them. But now with a push of a button, I can close my property and contain them until I'm able to coax the beast back in or call a neighbor. This has been life changing. I love the picture of the family, and I know I said cattle, but that's a sheep. It's he's got other livestock, too. Just a couple of other things people have said about the program. AgrAbility basically improved our ability to stay farming, and Ned knew things that could help me that I didn't even realize I needed, but they sure made an impact the spring. While we do work with individuals for the most part, we know that this has a broader impact on the community as well through dollars retained in the community, continued resilience and expertise, and a lot of other factors. In our 2018 evaluations, almost 90% of our clients who received assessments had remained farming. And um, the national level AgrAbility program is working on getting more data for an actual economic impact so that we can find the dollar value of helping keep people in farming. But they do also credit this to being a public health concern, the number of disabilities in agriculture and how we deal with this aging farm population and how we help keep people working in this field. So if you came into this room thinking, I don't want to take resources from someone else. I don't know what this is or I don't know where to start, just know that this is for you or for the person that you were thinking about when I mentioned mobility or other challenges. Also, if you haven't heard of us before and you have other ideas about how to connect, we're always figuring out how best to approach new audiences. But overall, I hope the key takeaways are the fact that we know this is demanding work, but prevention can really help. That we help provide solutions for anyone with a disability or impairment. The early intervention and proper equipment make a difference. Whether that is, um, utilizing adaptive tools or ergonomics, I find it really interesting, but they consider it an ergonomic tool until it becomes an adaptive or assistive tool when you actually need it versus when you choose to use it. Just remember that support is available, you don't have to work through pain. Everyone knows someone who could benefit from these resources, so please don't hesitate to take down our information here, MichiganAgrability.org, pretty easy to remember. And then the 1800 number there goes directly to Ned, I believe, and our website on the extension page is just a little bit more info and other articles about AgrAbility and then, of course, my direct contact information as well. So, MSU extension slide. This is great information for a lot of people who are interested in continuing their active lifestyle and being involved in agriculture. I really appreciate you sharing a number of things and it definitely has my head spinning on some options that we may need. She's a great resource for people if you have questions or thoughts or want to run something past her. You're getting a lot of comments, great presentation and many thank you, Sam. So great job tonight.