CENTRAL POINT, Ore. — Nationally, 83% of farmworkers identify as Hispanic or Latino. In Oregon, that number is suspected to be higher.
To Artemio Gutierrez, the foreman at Dark Hallow Farm in Medford, it’s critical that farmworkers know about pests and diseases that harm crops.
“We are the first ones to see the problems,” said Gutierrez, who attended a bilingual field day in September at the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center, also known as SOREC.
But historically, educational resources for growers have only been in English. That presented a roadblock for a community of workers with varying levels of English fluency or literacy.
Luisa Santamaria, a nursery plant pathology specialist and bilingual educator with Oregon State University Extension Service, has made it her mission to bridge this gap.
“My main objective is to provide education in plant health to prevent plant diseases. There is a need for bilingual education,” said Santamaria, who is based at the OSU North Willamette Research and Extension Center outside of Portland.
In September, Santamaria attended the bilingual field day, collaborating with fellow OSU researchers to present their work in Spanish. She worked alongside Alexander Butcher, an OSU entomology doctoral student, and Achala KC, an associate professor in plant pathology at SOREC and the event organizer, to ensure the information was effectively communicated to the Spanish-speaking audience.
There’s more to translation than just the words, Santamaria said. “It has to be together with education.”
This means Santamaria takes time to explain the science behind why workers are being trained to look out for pests or diseases. “I try to provide the reasons why we have to do things correctly,” she said. “I show them what is the difference between bacteria, fungi and the virus.”
Santamaria also warns against straight translation. Sometimes it’s helpful to keep the common name for pests and diseases since that is what they use at work. “No one is going to call cochinilla, referring to the mealybug, right?” said Santamaria, referring to a vineyard pest. “Workers agree with me that it's better to take sometimes the English common name, because that is the name they are familiar with.”
At the field day, which was split into indoor classes and field visits, there were 12 Spanish-speaking farmworkers gathered to learn about pests that affect Oregon vineyards.
“They’re boots on the ground in the vineyard,” said Butcher. “This field day was geared towards giving them information that might help them be better scouts in the field.”
The field day provided a hand-on experience that included looking at the vines and understanding the symptoms, KC said.
Participants collected samples of pest and disease damage at the commercial vineyards and then took them inside for examination. “We had the auditorium set up with microscopes and they had a chance to look at the samples,” said KC. “They learned how to identify and what to look out for.”
Learning impacts everyone
Participants, teachers and vineyard owners see the impact of these educational opportunities.
“We want to learn what we can do in the farm before things happen and we lose plants,” said Gutierrez. He especially likes learning with other workers, who provide their own expertise. “I learn from the other people there too.”
KC said after trainings like this vineyard managers reach out to share their appreciation. “One of the managers said that it encouraged their workers to look for more problems at the vineyard because they were more aware of the problems.”
Other participants have told Santamaria that “they are grateful with that opportunity to have someone to explain them in different ways.” Conversations with participants show Santamaria that her work has an impact: “I see they value what I'm doing.”
Butcher said the event was impactful for him as an instructor too. “This event was really different than the field days that I normally go to,” he explained. “It felt like they were much more attentive. They were much more appreciative. Every single person at the end of the day shook each of our hands and personally expressed how grateful they were to be there and how much they liked learning more about their work.”
Future efforts
KC has hosted bilingual field days at SOREC for several years with the help of Santamaria and educators from California. While this year’s event was on the smaller side, generally numbers reach the 30s.
In addition to assisting in bilingual education across departments in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, Santamaria frequently hosts customized trainings with nurseries and conducts research in soil-borne pathogens. She has also made a bilingual certification program in plant Disease Prevention and Diagnosis that also provides pesticide recertification credits by the Oregon Department of Agriculture. She is working to make this program mobile-friendly to reach a broader audience.
Gutierrez emphasized that workers are eager to keep learning and encourages employers and educators to offer any opportunities they can. “It's hard to see all the problems outside,” said Gutierrez. “Let’s try to spend one day every two or three months letting the workers go have the class and learn.”
“I enjoy what I am doing. It’s important to me,” he said.
