Extension Out Loud

Episode links:

Cornell Farmworker Program website

Episode transcript:

PAUL TREADWELL: Welcome to Extension Out Loud, a podcast from Cornell Cooperative Extension. I'm Paul Treadwell.

KATIE BAILDON: And I'm Katie Baildon.

PAUL TREADWELL: We got a chance to sit down and talk to--

KATIE BAILDON: We talked to Mary Jo Dudley. She's senior extension associate and director of the Cornell Farmworker Program in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University.

PAUL TREADWELL: The format of this episode is the result of us wanting to give Mary Jo a platform to explain the Farmworkers Program in some detail.

MARY JO DUDLEY: My name is Mary Jo Dudley. I'm the director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, which is a university-wide program. And my faculty appointment is in the Department of Global Development, which is in the College of Ag and Life Sciences. The Cornell Farmworker Program has quite a long history. It actually started under the name of the Cornell Migrant Program over 54 years ago when students, in order to graduate, needed to work on a farm.

So for students who were from farming families, they would work a full semester on a different farm. But students who hadn't grown up on a farm would work a full year on a farm. The program was born out of student activism. Because at this time, a Cornell alum donated a large apple orchard in Wayne County to the university, and it became one of the first experiment stations.

So many students worked on that farm, and they lived in migrant housing and worked alongside migrant farm workers who, at that time, were primarily Southern Blacks. This had a deep impact on the students. They were surprised about the situation of farm workers, in particular migrant farm workers. And they went to the Cornell Faculty Senate, along with their faculty mentors, and the senate approved a resolution that Cornell should have a program specifically dedicated to the needs of farmworkers and their families.

So with that background, our program really focuses on farmworker-identified needs and opportunities. The program is dedicated to improving the living and working conditions of farmworkers and their families. But we also seek recognition for their contributions to society and their acceptance and full participation in local communities. So this includes things like equal protection under the law, earning a living wage, living in safe and comfortable housing, and more importantly, receiving respect as workers and as individuals to allow them to participate fully in their communities.

So how do we understand what farmworkers need? And the way that we approach this is direct interviews with farmworkers in the format of a needs assessment. The interviews examine where the workers originate. Why do they migrate? How do they get here? How do they find their employment? What is their job? What is their day to day? What do they enjoy about their job? What do they find challenging? What do they do during their time off?

How do they interact with others in local communities in the rural areas? And what are their goals for the future? And this aspect of understanding where they came from, why they came, how they located employment, and what their goals are for the future drives the agenda of the Cornell Farmworker Program, because we look at how people assess where they are today and where they'd like to be in one year, five years, 10 years. And so we can look at the current challenges and go from there to how to address those challenges.

So who are the farmworkers in New York state? Currently, most of the farmworkers are undocumented workers that come from rural areas of Mexico and rural areas from Guatemala. And we have a small portion of workers who come from Jamaica through the temporary guestworker program. When we talk about farm workers, we often talk about seasonal or year-round and temporary guestworkers who come through the H-2A program.

And those workers come with a visa with a beginning date and an end date. And they also have a very specific wage rate, which is higher than the New York state minimum wage for farmworkers. The 2017 ag census estimated that New York state has approximately 56,000 hired farmworkers and an additional 40,000 unpaid workers, which typically refer to family members. In addition, we have over 1,100 workers who work in packing plants, in the apple packing plants and in other packing plants.

So when we talk about farmworkers, it's important to think about, who are we including in that pool? In New York state, we had a major transition around 2000. And preceding 2000, about 2/3 of our workers were migrant workers, people who followed the season and followed the crops. And about a third lived year round. But starting in 2000, that shifted dramatically.

So currently, we have about 2/3 of the farmworkers live year round, and about a third migrate. And that's directly associated with the changes within the dairy sector, in which a workforce that had been a family workforce or locals, neighbors, cousins transitioned to an immigrant workforce, with those workers coming primarily from rural Mexico and Guatemala. And that is a heavily undocumented population.

If we look at agriculture in New York state, because of our prevalence as leaders nationwide in apple production-- we're the second-largest apple-producing state, in pumpkins, in maple syrup. We're the third-largest dairy-producing state, and we're third in cabbage, grapes, cauliflower, and fourth in crops including pears, tart cherries, sweet corn, snap beans, squash, and we're fifth in onions. These are all very labor-intensive crops.

So traditionally, that large group of farmworkers were referred to as migrants, those people who followed the crops. So they would begin in Southern states and work in harvest activities in Southern states and follow the harvest up the coast. For those who were what we call the Eastern migrant stream, they would work in the Carolinas, come to New York state. And once the harvest had been completed in New York state in November, typically around Thanksgiving, they would return to Southern states.

We saw a change in this since 2000, where rather than follow crops, there was a transformation within the farmworker population where they would work on more than one farm and engage in agricultural production activities following the season of the year. So we find in upstate New York, we have people in the winter months-- January, February-- who are tying grapes, and later in the spring, they might be planting apple trees.

And then, later, they are pruning apple trees, for example. And they will eventually move on to harvest activities and post-harvest packing plants. So by working in different farms on different commodities, they can basically find employment in agriculture year round. And agriculture has always been an entry point for recent immigrants because you don't need to know how to read and write in English to do agriculture.

So if we look historically, it began with former African-American sharecroppers, and we've had any number of immigrants coming to the US that entered employment through farmwork, Italian immigrants, Finnish immigrants, German prisoners of war, coal miners. The [INAUDIBLE] who traveled the freight trains often lived from doing agricultural work. This changed with the introduction of guestworker programs.

So the guestworker programs were actually a newer version of what is called the [SPANISH] program. When we have a labor shortage, and we can certify that there's a labor shortage, we can bring workers from other countries to do that work. And they come with a work visa referred to as H-2A temporary guestworker visa. And their visas are issued with a beginning date and an end date.

Initially, we saw workers who were coming from Jamaica and other Caribbean Islanders. Later, we had US workers coming from Puerto Rico under contracts. They didn't have the visa because they didn't have to worry about citizenship. And currently, our H-2A guestworker program has workers from Mexico, Jamaica, and Guatemala.

So in the '80s, between the 1980s and the 2000s, farmwork became an area for entry into the workforce for recent refugees. We had Haitians who arrived in Florida because of changes in Haiti. We had Guatemalans and Salvadorans who fled violence in Central America as well as coming from the other sides of the globe, refugees from Bangladesh, Southeast Asian women, Cambodian women. So it's important to understand that immigrants have always been a critical part to farmwork.

For those workers who have lived in New York state for an extended period of time, they have created families here. Many of them have US-born children. That dynamic changes in that this pattern of migration-- moving north and south, returning to home countries-- has diminished significantly. It also raises different priorities among the farmworker population. The primary priority that we have learned about through our research is the heavy weight of immigration concerns among this heavily undocumented population.

But those who have children also want to understand how to navigate in their communities-- what is appropriate in our actions with schools, how to locate daycare centers. We don't have statistics on how many people have families and how many people do not. But in general, those people who are living and work in fruit and vegetable year round are more likely to have family members. And dairy workers, which are obviously year-round workers, may or may not have family members.

The major factor in this is that dairy workers typically have employer-provided housing. So some employers are not interested in housing a family, and their housing might not be appropriate for anything other than single men. So it varies tremendously. And we don't have statistics and don't intend to collect statistics on that because that changes constantly every day. But what I would say is that as we see more families, the interest in learning how to navigate in their communities comes to the fore.

Most of the farmworkers who are here currently are here to work. And that's something that our research showed, that the farm workers come to work. And when you talk about their future, their plan is to return home. They don't come to stay. Over time, their personal situation may change. As they marry or they have children, that may change. But what motivates them to come is either they are fleeing violence, or it's an economic reality that they cannot earn money where they are from.

And they come here to work, to earn money, to pay back the debts that are incurred with coming here, and to create a nest egg so they have something to go back to. They may purchase land. They may purchase animals. They may build a house. However, their primary priority while they are here is the workplace.

They want to be successful in the workplace, they want to understand opportunities for advancement in the workplace, and they want to be involved in a positive workplace. So we did a large research project that we worked with producers and farmworkers to look at, what is a positive workplace? And on our website, we have the results of that research plus tips and tools for creating positive workplaces. And the tips and tools for creating positive workplaces revolve around establishing good communication coupled with mutual respect.

So typically, in our interviews, in our needs assessment interviews, farmworkers will identify interest in how they can improve relations in the workplace with their employers, with their co-workers. And it's a challenge because, for many of them, their co-workers are also their housemates. But in understanding the workplace and understanding the need to communicate well with others in rural communities, they're interested in learning English.

And they're interested in opportunities to learn English that are fluid and flexible because they may not have a constant time off. And most don't have their own transportation, and public transportation in rural areas is unreliable. So one thing they talk about is they want to understand what services are there and how they can access that.

But since immigration is at the top of the list, it's important to understand that we live in an area of intensive immigration enforcement. And over the years, immigration debates have been stalled. We're now in a new era where we're talking about the Farm Modernization Act, which would provide an accelerated option for legalization of farm workers. But until that passes, farm workers talk a lot about the presence of law enforcement officials in rural areas that identify them as potential undocumented workers.

And so this risk of having law enforcement come to your house or stop you while you're going shopping is a very real risk. And that can lead to deportation and lead to separation of undocumented workers from their US-born children. The ACLU refers to this as the Constitution-free zone of the United States, those areas in which immigration enforcement can take place without any necessary catalyst.

And so the question of immigration is very central to the discussion about farmworkers. Some of them ask, are they supporting local economies? Are they doing work that others won't do? And our research points to the fact that they come to work, not to stay. Many ask, why don't they just apply for a visa? And there is no visa for workers on dairy farms. What we see is a situation where workers are doing physically demanding work in all kinds of weather.

In our research, they discuss social, economic, linguistic, and geographic isolation. It's a relatively young workforce. In our research, they discuss challenges to adapting to new communities. That includes things like language, cultural norms and expectations. Many of the farm workers note that we talk a lot about time. We're out of time. We're running out of time. We don't have enough time. And so that's part of what they always find interesting.

Of course, the challenges of living in rural, geographically isolated areas where there is no public transportation, the desire to have a positive workplace, to communicate well with your co-workers, to understand how to negotiate for changes in the workplace. And for those who now have families, they're interested in how to interact with schools, daycare. And as immigrants, many of them express loneliness, missing their family, missing home.

I think one of the aspects that is often not visible is while the general public has a sense that this is very physically demanding work, they may not have as close a sense of the dangers associated with the work, for example, dangers associated with using ladders or equipment, and both mechanical equipment on fruit and vegetable farms and equipment in milking parlors, equipment in processing and packing plants. It's dirty work, and there are dangers associated with working with large animals on dairy farms.

Another aspect, which is very prevalent in our conversations with farmworkers is that they work in both extremely hot and extremely cold temperatures. All of you who have experienced an upstate winter understand what it would be like to spend hours in February tying grape vines to a wire. And as we talked about a little bit before, the challenge is that many of them now have US-born children. In fact, in the US, there are over 4 million US-born children with one or more undocumented parent. And since the undocumented parent runs the risk of deportation, the possibility for family separation is very high.

So part of what we do is we support farmworkers in addressing these needs and fill in the gaps. We have students who go to farms during the farmworker's day off and tutor them in English as a second language. And I'll talk a little bit about some of the other things. COVID-19 really changed the game with farmworkers. Our priority was maintaining ongoing communication with farmworkers.

So we had to nearly, overnight, transition from face-to-face, on-farm workshops to developing a system where we could quickly communicate with a large number of farm workers. We developed a system of text messaging to 3,000 farm workers that we had their personal cell phone numbers. And we had their personal cell phone numbers because they have participated in an activity with us in the past few years.

We do many on-farm workshops about how to navigate within an intensive immigration-enforcement environment. We do many workshops where we assist families in assigning temporary guardians for their US-born children. And so we had those numbers, and we utilize that system to begin communicating with farmworkers about critical issues.

PAUL TREADWELL: And you're listening to Extension Out Loud, the podcast from Cornell Cooperative Extension, and our conversation with Mary Jo Dudley. As we talked to Mary Jo, the issue of the pandemic came up. And this section really looks at our farmworkers and the challenges they faced in dealing with this crisis, including isolation, access to health care, and issues of food security.

So you had a database of 3,000 numbers that you could rely on. Can you talk a little bit about what it took to build the trust to be able to develop a database like that? Because obviously, farmworkers aren't just going to give any random visitor their cell phone number.

MARY JO DUDLEY: That's right. So I personally have been working with farmworkers for over 16 years. And that means regularly going to farms, regularly interacting with people. We do workshops. We do training activities. We do troubleshooting. Our workplace relations project-- we interview farm owners and managers and ask them how their workplace has changed over time, and what are the challenges as well as the benefits.

And then, separately, we meet with farmworkers and talk about what it's like to work in that workplace. We analyze what they are both saying, and we host an all-farm meeting in which we address the challenges that they face. And we have developed, as I mentioned earlier, a series of tips and tools that are available for farm employers as well as farm workers.

One of the things that this research highlighted was that workers often did not have a face-to-face interview with their employer. They came to work on the farm, they shadowed another worker, but they never had that, welcome to the farm. This is what we're doing here.

And so we put together a bilingual tool which is a worker orientation checklist that farmers can use. When you have a new worker, did you talk about benefits? Did you talk about how to ask for time off? Did you talk about scheduling? Did you talk about training opportunities? So that's an approach in which we interacted with hundreds of farmworkers.

And in the immigration arena, many of the farmworkers who came here without proper documentation have US-born children. However, in order to create a legal document that assigns a temporary guardian for their US-born children, they have to have a current federal photo ID from their own government.

So 13 years ago, we started working with the Mexican and the Guatemalan consulates to bring them to upstate New York so farmworkers could get those necessary documents without running the risk of traveling from the North Country to New York City, where the possibility of being detained was very, very high. So in a recent mobile consulate event that we had with workers from Guatemala, we had 400 people come in a single day.

And so when they come, we collaborate with partners. And during that event, clinic was present to give free health consultations. We have pro-bono immigration attorneys on site in case people have immigration questions. We have workplace safety people on site to share resources. And so over the years, many farmworkers have attended either an on-farm workshop, a research project, a consulate activity.

And so that's how we have so many personal phone numbers, because we asked them if they would like to be informed of workshops, consulate visits, et cetera. So obviously, of those phone numbers, a certain percentage no longer were active. But once we went through, we found that we had this way to communicate with about 3,000 farmworkers.

When COVID presented itself, we had to interrupt our face-to-face interactions. And so we started initially sending, via WhatsApp or text message, links to videos in Spanish, in Mam, in other indigenous languages about the transmission of COVID-19 and how to protect oneself. We also organized Spanish language calls with a trusted medical professional, Dr. Canario, who's the medical director of Finger Lakes Community Health.

And these calls were simply Q&A. But this system allowed not only for us to communicate information to farmworkers, but they could communicate back to us. They could text us back and let us know if they needed masks, if they needed additional medical advice, if they needed legal referrals, and for many, if they needed food. So we transitioned our activities.

We worked with a group of local volunteers, the Bryant Park mask sellers, who sold masks. And we have distributed now about 8,000 masks to farmworkers. But at the beginning of the pandemic, none of us were familiar with masks, and farmworkers had a lot of questions about how to wash them, how to dry them, et cetera. So we included with the masks a bilingual graphic which showed how the mask should be worn, how it can be washed.

And on the reverse side, we included the phone numbers for all the federally designated migrant health clinics. So if it's a mask that we distributed in this area, it has the phone number for Finger Lakes Community Health, or if it's in Western New York, Oak Orchard Community Health. Or if it's in the Hudson Valley, it was then Sun River Community Health.

Because we had this two-way text messaging system, we started getting requests for food for people who, during quarantine, could not leave the farm. That's not a typical activity that we had ever undertaken in the past, but we needed to develop a an emergency response to that. And fortunately, we had a farmer who donated a large amount of beef.

We worked with CCE to store that beef, and we worked with the local food kitchen, with Loaves & Fishes, to cook those meals. And so we were picking up a hundred fully-cooked meals every week and delivering those. During the season, we also had farmers who provided produce. So we would deliver to those people who were in quarantine a box of shelf-safe food, produce, and cooked meals.

However, this really underscored food insecurity within the farmworker population, not only during quarantine, but because their children were not attending schools. While the schools might offer the continuation of meals that could be picked up at the school, most of the farmworkers didn't have transportation to go to the school to pick up the meals. So it underscored how much reliance vulnerable families had when school lunches and breakfasts were no longer available to their children.

During COVID, we undertook another activity. We have always supported farmworkers with legal clinics, but we could no longer do face-to-face clinics. So we would get a text message from a farmworker family that had a legal need. We would conduct a legal intake over the phone and then match that farmworker with a pro-bono immigration or family law attorney in their area. The immigration attorneys often receive funding to serve a specific geographic area.

And then we would have virtual legal clinics. The attorney would be at their kitchen table. The farmworker would be at their kitchen table. The translator would be at their kitchen table. And in order to facilitate that, we had to teach farmworkers how to download Zoom on their phones. So my students would do dry runs with farmworkers who were going to go to a legal clinic, and practice before the clinic.

And this allowed for farmworkers to receive that necessary support, those people who were in immigration and deportation proceedings to receive the necessary support. And Governor Cuomo put into place the possibility for virtual notarization, so legal documents could be notarized via Zoom or FaceTime. So we were allowed to continue with those families who were interested in assigning temporary guardians for their US-born children.

A parent who's undocumented who is facing deportation proceedings will often put into place a temporary guardian to avoid that those children become wards of the state. And they can name an individual that they know and trust. We did 10 virtual legal clinics, quite a bit of background work to make those happen. In addition to signing legal papers such as temporary guardianship, we also put together a packet of information for those people who were going to serve as a guardian, which includes all the information about the children-- their teacher, their pediatrician, their dentist, allergies, likes, dislikes.

And we also used COVID to tweak our service directory. We have a Spanish and English language searchable database of services that are organized by geocode. So you put in your address, and you can look at the services, things such as housing, legal services, education, English classes, job training, safety, health services.

And it's not just a simple list, but each service indicates, do they provide translation? If so, in what languages? Do they provide transportation? If so, how do you organize it? What is the general fee structure? And what are the documents that are required for one to access those services? Because you don't want to send an undocumented person to a government service where there are mandatory reporters. So we did a lot of revamping of our website. We have a Spanish language website, which is [INAUDIBLE], which is cell phone accessible.

And also, during COVID, we developed visual materials on new regulations. There were state regulations, COVID farm safety regulations. There was not an easy way for those regulations to be communicated to farmworkers. So we developed an audiovisual animated video to share that information with farmworkers. Many things changed. The Driver's License, the Green Light Law was passed, so immigrants, regardless, could have access to driver's licenses. However, the DMV closed, so we mailed out a lot of Spanish-language driver's manuals so people could study for the written test.

Also, right before COVID, the law that provides the Farm Labor Fair Laborer Practices Act, which revises the New York state labor law to include new protections for farmworkers, farmworkers and domestic workers were excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, which is the federal, which provides the right to organize, guaranteed workers' comp, et cetera, guaranteed day of rest.

And that was changed in July of 2019, where the New York state labor law was revised through this legislation. So that raised a lot of new information. One of the things that we've been doing is, how do you take complex information and make it accessible to an immigrant low-literacy population? So I'm just going to show you this. As I said, the labor law affecting farmworkers changed, and it has many components. So how do you communicate it?

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

- If you're a farmworker in New York state, there's a new law that you should know called the New York State Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act. This video explains what this new law means to you. This material was produced by the Cornell Farmworker Program at Cornell University. Pause this video at any moment to take note of the information.

This law went into effect on January 1, 2020. To whom does it apply? This applies to all farmworkers in New York state with or without legal status. Under the new law, you have eight rights that could be beneficial to you.

Right number one, the right to 24 hours of consecutive rest per week-- you could choose to work during your day of rest, but your employer can't force you to work. If you're unable to work for 24 consecutive hours due to weather or crop conditions, this counts as your day of rest. You should always keep track of the hours you worked and make sure that your pay stub reflects the exact number of hours worked.

PAUL TREADWELL: To watch the full video, please visit bit.ly/cfb_video or see the link in our show notes. Now, back to our conversation with Mary Jo.

MARY JO DUDLEY: I wanted to show that to you because we're using this animated form-- and this is the English version, and we obviously have the Spanish version-- to communicate complex topics. As you note, this new law came into effect January 1, 2020. And we faced a stay-at-home order two months later. And it was critical because there are certain aspects of this law, including paid sick leave, paid family leave, that became very critical during COVID.

How would farmworkers be paid for the time that they were in quarantine, or the time that they were ill, or the time that they were caring for a sick family member? So what this required is a different way of working, but the priority being to maintaining ongoing communication with farmworkers and this two-way communication, which included our text messaging system as well as regularly scheduled health related calls in Spanish with Dr. Canario.

And our most recent one was about vaccines-- why do you need it-- and a Q&A-- what are the challenges with vaccines? And general calls with farmworkers that were regularly scheduled, where they could just talk about issues that they were facing. So we went from in-person, face-to-face regular communications to developing a system to maintaining communication, using text messages, WhatsApp, Zoom calls, and regular telephone calls.

The concrete when your life is primarily focused on your work-- certain aspects of that take on greater importance, for example, your housing. If you're working 60 hours a week, and you go home to a house where you don't have hot water, or the house is falling apart, you never rest.

But if you go back to a house that you're comfortable in, you're able to rest. And one interesting aspect of farmwork is that many of the farm employers provide housing because there's no other housing available in rural areas. So the quality of the housing is extremely important to those that work on farms for their general satisfaction and their well-being.

KATIE BAILDON: Historically, farmworkers have not been protected under the National Labor Rights Act, right? But then there are some protections at the state level now because of the new legislation. Is that right?

MARY JO DUDLEY: When the National Labor Relations Act was passed, at that time, that was still a time of the Jim Crow laws in the South. And so that worker protection which gives the right to overtime pay, the right to a day of rest, the right to organize-- in order to get the support of the Southern Congress people, rather than explicitly state a racial exclusion, they excluded two kinds of workers who were typically Black, domestic workers and farmworkers.

Since that is federal regulation, the only way that can be changed is states can amend their labor law. And in 1990, I think, New York state amended its labor law with relation to domestic workers. Other states, as you know, have amended their labor law with respect to farmworkers, such as California. And that adjustment of labor regulations, when you have the right to organize-- that evolved into the birth of many labor unions.

United Farm Workers, based in California, was an entity that focuses-- has focused on organizing farmworkers. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee in Ohio focuses on organizing farmworkers. The typical union structure-- since many states' farmworkers did not have the right to organize, some states formed farmworker organizations that didn't use the typical union structure.

So for example, I don't know if you've ever heard of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. That was a coalition of farmworkers in Immokalee that, rather than focusing their energy on changing the relations between worker and employer, they joined forces and targeted those that were making the most money from their labor.

And so they put forth a campaign, which was called A Penny A Pound, for those that were buying tomatoes. And they focused on Taco Bell, Whole Foods, Burger King. And eventually, they were able to convince those people who bought the tomatoes to pay a penny more per pound. And that extra income was distributed among the workers.

We can turn back to-- the United Farm Workers, many years ago, had a grape boycott. And so that was a consumer boycott, where consumers were encouraged not to buy grapes grown in California. Or the Farm Labor Organizing Committee had the tomato soup boycott. They encouraged consumers not to buy Campbell Soup until they changed their relationships with farmworkers.

So there are different ways to think about organizing, and there are ways that farmworkers have organized informally for many years. Probably the most predominant is there's an organization of dairy workers. It's called [SPANISH], and they have organized. But before organizing around changing the labor law with its provisions for farmworkers, they focused on driver's licenses, the Green Light campaign.

So those workers said, we can't have a driver's license. We have US-born children. If something happens to our children in the middle of the night, we have no way to legally attend to their medical needs. Similarly, we have no way to legally arrive at our parent-teacher conferences. If you don't have a driver's license, and you live in rural areas of New York state or any other state where there's no reliable public transportation, most of the farmworkers rely on an informal system of transportation.

It's called [SPANISH]. They will hire a local unemployed or underemployed individual to give them a ride to town. And that ride to town may cost $50. So this is still an issue for us right now as we're encouraging farmworkers to access COVID-19 vaccines, is the transportation aspect. So there's a two-prong approach.

One is the federally designated migrant health clinics go directly to farms and vaccinate all workers. Or in some areas, CCE has hosted joint vaccination clinics with the County Health Department. But we need to ensure that there's appropriate and accessible transportation for farmworkers to arrive at those clinics. The most successful model that we've seen is where the employers transport their workers.

So there was an outbreak of COVID among a group of Guatemalan workers for whom Spanish is their second language. And their employer told them that people would be coming from the county health department to ask them questions in Spanish, probably in some version of Spanish, and that they should speak to them truthfully. Someone arrived at their house. They gave their real name, their address, and that person took photographs of them and of their house.

The next day, they appeared in the local newspaper, photographs of undocumented immigrants that tested positive to COVID-19, with their address in front of their house. The only option for those individuals is to flee, whether they're violently ill or not, because that kind of information is an invitation for ICE to go to that location.

That week, we had various reports of ICE picking up other farmworkers in the area, who had worked on the same farm for 20 years, who had US-born children, and took them to our federal detention center in Batavia that had a significant number of COVID-19 cases, and their bail was posted at $19,000. Make of it what you will. But did that person do that intentionally? I imagine not. But it illustrates the gap between an understanding of-- that would be a HIPAA violation if that was a health provider, right?

But it was a journalist. And they didn't know who it was. They didn't know the difference, right? In the current context of anti-immigrant sentiments, it fueled the fire. And we saw this in rural areas where social media, Facebook postings, et cetera, pointed to immigrants, and farmworkers specifically, as bringing COVID to their area. Farmworkers are essential workers. They worked despite statewide stay-at-home directives. They had higher exposure to infection. And initially, they did not have access to PPE.

KATIE BAILDON: On a final note, Mary Jo shared with us what brings her hope for this work.

PAUL TREADWELL: And it's really an interesting section because it's-- after listening to the lead-up to this part, it really seems like hope is a challenge to maintain. But Mary Jo had some words about that. So we hope you've enjoyed this conversation, and here's Mary Jo.

MARY JO DUDLEY: I think it's hopeful that the New York state labor law has been revised to provide protections for farmworkers. And as long as we can communicate that in an effective way, that opens up options for better well-being for farmworkers. I think that the partnership and the trust that we've developed with farmworkers allows us to work together to create approaches and materials that respond to both immediate and long-term needs among this population.

I believe that through the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people in New York state and other states perhaps changed their perspective towards food, it opened the question of, who is producing this food? Who is milking the cows? Who is harvesting our vegetables?

And so I have hope. And I have hope that we're now talking about immigration reform specifically for farmworkers. Because if we could find a way to diminish the fear associated with living undocumented in the US, we open up opportunities to be more creative.

PAUL TREADWELL: Thanks for listening to this episode. Extension Out Loud was produced and edited by Paul Treadwell with help from Katie Baildon.

KATIE BAILDON: For more about this episode, including show notes and more, visit extensionoutloud.com, and be sure to subscribe to Extension Out Loud on your favorite podcast directory.

Summer is a great time to be on the water. For this episode of Extension Out Loud we talked with David White, of New York Sea Grant, about the basics of boating safety. Learn how you can help insure a safe and family friendly experience on the great waterways of New York State.

Transcript:

Paul Treadwell Welcome to extension out loud, a podcast from Cornell Cooperative Extension. I'm Paul Treadwell. And here we are in the middle of summer, seemed like a good time to talk about boating and boat safety. And for our conversation today I talked to David White is with New York City grant. He's the recreation and tourism specialist and Associate Director of the Great Lakes Research Consortium. Dave, when we talk about boats, that's a pretty large term. I mean, I think of tugboats, I think of ocean liners. But when we talk about boat safety in New York State, what kind of boats are we talking about?

David White You know, what I always refer to people is if you can ride on it, or in it, you should consider it a boat. In that way, you just start right off from whether it's a paddleboard paddle, paddle board, kayak, canoe, power boat, pontoon boat up to a yacht, you know, those are all forms of boats. We have them all in New York throughout the Finger Lakes in Great Lakes across the state. We just have awesome vessels and each one of them has a different set of safety requirements, but there's a lot of basics and you always got to start with like jackets.

Paul Treadwell Okay, so even if you're on a paddleboard, just paddling around in your pond, you should have a life jacket.

David White Absolutely. In fact, if you're on a paddleboard, we'll start with a requirement you're required to have a lake check onboard every vessel, the right size, the right shape, US Coast Guard approved. I always remind people it has to say US Coast Guard approved on it because there's a lot of places where you can get them from overseas that they are not US Coast Guard approved under the age of 12 have to have it on at all times when they're underway. If you're on a personal watercraft, you're being pulled behind. You have to have a life jacket on, so there's some confusion. But when it comes to paddle safety, you don't have to wear it but there's no place else to put it. You know, I've got a paddle board. I have a pedal paddle board I got a kayak if you don't have it, I do have it strapped someplace and the whole concept is it has to be accessible. So if you're on a paddleboard kayak one thing to be looking at maybe is an inflatable, especially trying to paddleboard inflatables are great I'm a huge fan of inflatables, you know, they don't mess with your tan you can get them to back all the important stuff that people think about when they're out on the boat. So baseline requirement of life jackets really there for us.

Paul Treadwell Okay, so when you say inflatable, I was think of, you know, airline safety and you can reach under your seat and pull that is that same thing. Are we talking about a different beast?

David White It kind of looks like that. I mean, it's all folded up. I mean, I have one that's a fanny pack. It's all folded up looks a fanny pack, or the around the collar, of course you can but you know, they're in clothes, they look really nice. But when you pull the lever, it is the same as if you were on an airplane, it really gets the same basic concept. It's got a co2 cartridge on it and it inflates.

Paul Treadwell So whenever you go out if you're going to set foot on a paddleboard or kayak your rowboat any kind of boat you're on, you should have a lifejacket that's Coast Guard approved. Yes, absolutely. So that's baseline for every watercraft.

David White Absolutely, it's what will provide everybody the safety and security they need to have as I say to you're going to survive until your rescued and that's what having a good life jacket on board. And then every vessel has to have a sound producing device. So all those vessels I just talked about every life jacket I own I have a whistle on so Wherever I am, I have a sound. And that again is just so you can get people's attention if you're in the water. And then depending on the type of vessel, we start talking about flares and fire extinguishers and flags and all the other requirements and recommended equipment you have to have on board and the more intense your boat is, if you will or the more product you have on board then the more safety equipment you have to have for yourself and everybody else.

Paul Treadwell Okay, so kayak, I should have my lifejacket and my whistle.

David White Absolutely.

Paul Treadwell Let's jump into, what are the most common boating accidents that people have. What are we protecting ourselves against?

David White Couple of things. One is just lack of attention. boating is family friendly fun, you always have to go there. I mean, that's what we want, like about boating, we have great waterways across New York State. So it is just a fun thing to do with the family, with your friends, or even if you're just out for your own solo day. And it's easy to lose track of attention into what's going on around you so its being attentive being prepared. And I always remind people take 15 minutes to prepare yourself before you go out. Make sure you've got all the safety gear to make your mind is in the right place. If you're going to be out having an adult beverage Do you have someone who's going to be able to drive the boat in your place, everybody's going to need to be certified and have taken the course by 2025. So you know if you've got some young kids, and you get them certified to operate the boat, you've got a designated driver with you at all time.

Paul Treadwell So what is the certification that you're speaking of?

David White In New York state boaters have to take an eight hour course they can take it online or in person from all of our friends in blue Coast Guard Auxiliary sheriff. I'm a volunteer instructor with the state of New York by 2025. It's called Brianna's law, everybody who operates a motorized vessel in the state of New York will have to have taken the course and passed it and have their certificate.

Paul Treadwell So if I have a kayak and I put a little electric motor on it to putter around for fishing, I'd would still have to take the course.

David White Yeah, you make a great point because a lot of people were now doing that. They'll put it Engine, you know, back in the day you put an engine on a canoe, there were actually mechanisms to do that, you'll see a lot of people putting in electric motor. And as I always say, when people go, Well, that's not really a boat, it's not, you know, I go, well, it's a motor on a boat. So it is whether it's propane, electric gas, or diesel or solar, they are all motor. So as soon as you take and put, any kind of propulsion on sailboat, paddle craft, you've turned it into a powerboat. And you actually have to register as a power boat. And you have to have all the required equipment of a power boat, because now you have power propulsion. So you've actually changed from a paddle craft, or sail craft to a power craft. So you have to now conform to all requirements of a power craft.

Paul Treadwell I'm not a big voter. So is it just my ignorance that makes all this surprising to me? Or is it is common knowledge across the boating community?

David White I'm loving hearing it in your voice, because it's just something that again, I hear from a lot of folks, well, no, I don't need to have that. Because I'm just putting a small electric motor on, there's really no difference than a two and a half electric motor from a two and a half gas powered motor except how it's propelled, you still have all of the same issues of you're now in a moving craft. Got to be prepared for that. Now I got a battery on board. So you've added a whole different dimension to the paddle craft and turning it into a power craft. So you have to be prepared for that. It's those kinds of things. And sure we take it for granted. We really don't think about it. But then once you do you begin to think Well, yeah, because I am now under power.

Paul Treadwell So on my kayak I go from from needing to have on life jacket and a whistle. I put my electric motor on it. Now what do I need,

David White depending on the size of your kayak, you might need a fire extinguisher, you might need a flare, you might need a rescue flag. So again, you begin to ranch it up because now you're under power, and you become a power boat. So actually then the guy paddling by you, he has the right away over you. So you've changed the entire tenor of that vessel. It's now become a motorized vessel. And it's just something that a lot of us haven't thought about because these are small engine, like you say to putter around, but you've added some different dimensions to that vessel that you just have to be prepared for.

Paul Treadwell Do you have any idea what are the proportion of how do I say non powered versus powered boats? are most people do they own powered boats or do they own like kayaks, canoes, things like that,

David White the numbers vary region by region, body of water by body of water, but I will tell you the wonderful thing is because of the proliferation of paddleboards and kayaks, paddleboards pedal kayaks into the industry. We brought a whole new group of folks into the family of boating and I just think it's fabulous. I have a inflatable paddleboard and an inflatable kayak that would easily fit in the front trunk of a Volkswagen Beetle. And a very small percentage of the audience that's listening to this understands what I mean by that. For the rest of the world. It's the size of a tent or a small backpack. So if you get folding paddles with it, you can have your inflatable lifejacket. So all of a sudden you've opened boating to the entire society, which I think is just fabulous because great opportunity to take advantage of the wonderful waterways whether you're up in the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the fingerlings out west, across the state of New York being able to participate in it. And, you know, I keep telling him for what a great way to welcome folks into the family of boating but to get him started on a paddleboard or kayak.

Paul Treadwell Just to get ridiculous here if I took my tube and I was going to be tubing, and I put a motor on it.

David White number one, you can't do that. Because a tube if you look at it and says this is a port, okay, most of those products, if you look at them, say this is a toy. Now let's transfer that over and now you're going to be towed by a boat on that toy. That toy is no different than a surfboard pair of skis, or anything else that you want to be pulled on behind the boat, you need to have a life jacket on. And we'll take it one step further. If it's let's say a personal watercraft, if you are towing someone behind a personal watercraft, it has to be a three person, personal watercraft because you need to have room for the operator to spotter and in case something happens to that person in the water behind you. You need to be able to rescue them and bring them back to shore. So you know a lot of folks will have a two seater jet ski in a pulling somebody behind it. Well, if something happens to that person, they can't get them back to shore. Or a lot of times you'll see a two or 3% jet ski. And they're pulling like four or five people on a raft behind it. And again, it's fun, as we always say, Oh, nothing can go wrong. And they're correct. nothing goes wrong until it does.

Paul Treadwell So if I'm going to water ski, I just can't go out with my buddy Fred and jump on the skis. Well, I can, but I'm not doing it safely or legally correct. Is it legal? Or is it just a matter of safety? Is there a law that says this has to be Yeah, the way? Okay, yeah. What laws do dictate what small boat owners have to adhere to? I mean, how do you find out about those things?

David White Yeah, we're fortunate in New York, our partners in New York state parks have an awesome website. It has all The boating information it has all the information on getting your certificate boating is family friendly fun what we're talking about is all the prep time so that when you're out on the water you're just having a good time you can go online there's online boating safety classes you can take your registered for it they have the voter guide that tells you for the type of boat you have, what kind of equipment you need to have on board I got an A great discussion yesterday with one of the neighbors that you know he was going to be going out Lake fishing and I said you have to have a white all around light on board and he goes what for and like so people can see you night. We don't have headlights. So you know it's different. That booklet is online tells you all the things in it tells you about the type of craft you have. So it will tell you if you have a paddle craft, what safety gear Do you need to have? What are the rules of the road? Again, if you take that pallet craft and put in engine, what do you need to have? If you're in a 15 foot boat? What do you need to have if you're in a 26 foot power boat? So all of that's listed so it's all right there. I say to folks, your safety equipment just I travel with my boat safety kit. And I'm doing demonstrations and in that small Tupperware container is all the safety gear I need. I check it at the beginning of the year. I make sure it's all correct. It's you know the flares are not outdated, the fire extinguisher works. And I just have it all right there and it says right on both safety kit. So if there's ever a problem, there it is. I hope I never have to open it but I'm well prepared in case I do insurance. That's good to know.

Paul Treadwell If people want to find out more about your work at Sea Grant, check the website is that how they would do it and

David White the best way is to check our website you know, use your favorite search engine if you want to find out more about laws. Again, state parks has a great website US Coast Guard Auxiliary, our partners there have a great website Dec has a great website with a lot of the launch ramps. If you are a paddle craft person, here's a challenge to you is we're coming out of COVID pick a different body of water every weekend to go to find a launch ramp, launch your kayak make sure you're cleaning it before you go out to remove any invasive species. We got our clean green drying program going on. So make sure you're not transporting any invasive species. But New York has a wealth of water based resource and we have canals, rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, big lakes, little lakes. What a great thing to do with your family. If you're getting into paddle craft pick a different location to go every weekend. And I would guess within an hour drive everybody in New York, they could go someplace different every weekend during the summer.

Paul Treadwell Thanks Dave for taking your time out. I know it's a busy time of year for you. We appreciate your Sage wisdom and advice here. hope everybody has an enjoyable time out on the water and stay safe.

David White Absolutely. Thanks for having me and have a fun family friendly time out on New York water.

Paul Treadwell Thanks for listening to this episode. Extension out loud was produced and edited by Paul Treadwell.

Katie For more about this episode including show notes and more visit extension outloud dot com, and be sure to subscribe to extension outloud on your favorite podcast directory.

The Cornell Chicken recipe has a storied history. During this conversation with Reenie Baker Sandsted - daughter of Dr. Baker, and Sarah Sandsted - grandaughter of Dr. Baker, we dive into the origins of this recipe. We also discuss other poultry innovations that Dr. Baker is responsible for. Recorded August 2018 at the New York State Fair.

Original Cornell Chicken recipe published 1950: ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2652

Accessible version of Cornell Chicken Recipe: yates.cce.cornell.edu/resources/corn…cken-barbecues

Episode Transcript:

PAUL TREADWELL: Welcome to Extension Out Loud, a podcast from Cornell Cooperative Extension. I am Paul Treadwell.

KATIE BAILDON: And I'm Katie Baildon.

PAUL TREADWELL: With summer, fall on us right now, we thought it'd be an interesting time to highlight one of our past episodes that really embraced a summary topic.

KATIE BAILDON: Yeah. It's an episode on Cornell chicken. We went to the New York State Fair a few summers ago and to Baker's Chicken Coop. And we had a great conversation about the origins of Cornell chicken.

PAUL TREADWELL: And surprisingly, it's been one of our most-listened-to episodes. So we're going to give you a chance to listen to it again if you've heard it before. And if you haven't, give a listen to the exciting origin stories of Cornell chicken.

It's time to think barbecue.

KATIE BAILDON: And being where we are, it also means Cornell chicken.

PAUL TREADWELL: For this episode, we spoke with Reenie Baker Sansted, daughter of Dr. Robert Baker, originator of the world famous Cornell chicken recipe.

KATIE BAILDON: And did you know that Dr. Baker started out as an extension agent in Saratoga County, New York?

PAUL TREADWELL: I did not know that, Katie.

KATIE BAILDON: [LAUGHS]

PAUL TREADWELL: We're also joined by Reenie's daughter, Sarah, also known as the granddaughter of Dr. Baker.

KATIE BAILDON: Our conversation took place at Baker's Chicken Coop in the midst of many happy and effusive diners.

PAUL TREADWELL: So let's fire up the grill and dig into the story of Cornell chicken, Dr. Baker, and some of his many innovations.

KATIE BAILDON: Chicken nuggets, anyone? [LAUGHS] Also, the original recipe for Cornell chicken is linked in the show notes.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Hi. So I'm Reenie Baker-Sansted. And I'm one of the daughters of Robert C. Baker.

SARAH SANSTED: And I'm Sarah Stanstead. I'm Reenie's daughter and the granddaughter of Robert C. Baker.

PAUL TREADWELL: So how long have you been running the [INAUDIBLE] here at the fair?

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Well, dad and mom started it in 1949. And at that time, it was a tent, and there was maybe three places to eat at the fair then. And they love telling the story of the pigs getting loose out of next door and coming through the tent and ripping the tent down. But we started with the idea that we wanted upstate New York to know about the Cornell barbecue chicken. So it was, again, to promote chicken to this area.

PAUL TREADWELL: So you ate a lot of chicken growing up.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: We did.

PAUL TREADWELL: Did you eat a lot of test chickens?

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: [LAUGHS]

PAUL TREADWELL: Do you remember that development process?

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Well, it is sort of a family joke that when dad came out with new products, he had a taste panel at Cornell. And then his kids became the second taste panel. And if we voted it down, the dogs became the last taste panel because there was plenty of good things that came out, and there there's a lot of not-so-good things that came out.

PAUL TREADWELL: [LAUGHS]

SARAH SANSTED: Some flops.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Yeah, there were some flops. Within the Tompkins County area, everybody knows the Cornell chicken, for sure. I mean every fireman or fundraiser's cooking chicken somewhere in the area. The story is that he went to get his master's at Penn State. And the president of Penn State said, the governor's coming. Can you think of a different way to serve chicken?

And so he wasn't fond of the great tomato base will burn. And so he was trying to think of a way that would keep the chicken moist and not dry out and yet not burn like tomato would. So that's how he came up with the recipe. But of course, you have to add eggs to it because that includes more of his poultry innovation and that emulsifiers the sauce to make it hold together better.

PAUL TREADWELL: So what I hear you telling me tell, though, is that this really is not Cornell chicken. It's Penn State chicken.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Well, so what happened was right after, then, he got a job at Cornell. And he brought the recipe with him and gave it to Cornell.

PAUL TREADWELL: So the secret is we don't talk about Penn State [INAUDIBLE].

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Yes. And I will tell you that the little known fact is that what really he did was to come up with a way to cook the chicken because with the racks and putting 25 on a rack and [INAUDIBLE]. So you could cook large numbers at the time and doing it over charcoal fire and how to do that outside on the pits. And that was all his innovation.

He was never into keeping it a secret. He was never into making money off a patent from it. It was all about encouraging people to eat chicken.

PAUL TREADWELL: I remember reading about that [INAUDIBLE]. And there was several other things he developed that were truly impressive.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Well, the chicken hot dog was one of his first and chicken baloney, one of the many things he did. But I think what people will think of him the most is the chicken nugget because that was a way to use chicken that had been ground up and sort of pushed together. It was sort of a way to put it together and make it a bite to eat and then bread it and fry it.

SARAH SANSTED: One of the things that fascinates me most about my grandfather is that I think part of his mission and part of his whole life principle is to figure out how to support poultry farmers. And that's something that's really important globally is making sure small farmers are successful. And mom has told me many times about how back when he was innovating and creating, that poultry farmers in upstate New York were suffering if they didn't have big enough broilers or they weren't producing what was needed for rotisserie chicken or fried chicken.

And so he wanted to help figure out a way to create more yield for them. And that's, I think, a really noble thing that he did because he-- the chicken nugget is an example of how to use the leftover pieces that aren't maybe used in other recipes and to figure out how to use smaller broilers so that those farmers could be successful and not go out of business.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: I think one of the other family secrets is that of his six children, three of us became vegetarians, due to all the taste testing. [LAUGHS]

PAUL TREADWELL: So are you still currently a vegetarian?

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: I still am.

PAUL TREADWELL: Oh, so--

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: So I have not eaten a chicken nugget since I was on the taste panel for them when I was a little kid.

PAUL TREADWELL: [INAUDIBLE] secrets are coming out left and right here. This is amazing.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: So don't know what they taste like, yeah.

KATIE BAILDON: Talk a little bit about what his job was at Cornell and how long he was there.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: So he started at Cornell in '49. And he retired in about '86. And he would have retired sooner, but mom had decided he was the kind of guy who needed something to do. So that's why she started Baker's Acres. And the joke was that he couldn't retire because he had to help pay for this endeavor that she had started.

So he did finally retire in '86. And she was absolutely right. It was very hard for him to not go into work every day. But he grew up in Sodus, New York. So part of Baker's Acres is a apple orchard and that [INAUDIBLE]. And he actually went to school in [INAUDIBLE] at Cornell. So that really made him very happy to work in the orchards.

But at Cornell, he was a professor in poultry science. He also became the head of the department many times. He even ran the Food Science Department for quite a while there. But he did a lot of consulting around the world for many, many different companies. But he truly loved Cornell and wanted Cornell to get credit for everything.

SARAH SANSTED: Also Grandpa, I would say it wasn't that he wasn't proud of the chicken nugget. But that wasn't really what he was most adamant about it. It was the Cornell barbecue sauce that, I think-- I didn't actually find out that he had invented the chicken nugget until I was, like, 15 years old. I didn't know.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Well, it was just another product. It was one of the many products.

SARAH SANSTED: It was one of the many products. Yeah, he didn't see it as the big breakthrough.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: I think McDonald's made it famous.

SARAH SANSTED: Commercialized it, yeah.

REENIE BAKER SANSTEAD: Yeah.

PAUL TREADWELL: Thanks for listening to this episode. Extension Out Loud was produced and edited by Paul Treadwell with help from Katie Baildon.

KATIE BAILDON: For more about this episode, including show notes and more, visit extensionoutloud.com. And be sure to subscribe to Extension Out Loud on your favorite podcast directory.

What trends are we seeing in Extension work nationally and how are state Extension systems rising to meet needs highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic? Dr. Caroline Crocoll Henney, executive director of the national Cooperative Extension System, joins the Extension Out Loud podcast to discuss these questions and the history of the Cooperative Extension System in the latest episode of Cornell Cooperative Extension's "Leading through Extension" podcast series. For show notes and the episode transcript, visit: https://cals.cornell.edu/news/2021/05/leading-through-extension-meeting-local-emerging-needs-nationwide

In this episode of "Extension Out Loud," CCE Associate Director Kimberly Kopko introduces listeners to the history and evolution of the College of Human Ecology and how its mission to support New York state families has endured. For show notes and the episode transcript visit: https://cals.cornell.edu/news/2021/05/leading-through-extension-supporting-families