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The most recent census figures confirmed what University of Idaho extension educators already knew. The Hispanic population in Idaho was growing—9 percent of the state’s population in the 2000 census—and it was underserved.

Three educational programs, among many that are both ongoing and just starting, were among the UI College of Agriculture’s responses: Hispanic classes at the UI Potato School, a bilingual milking school, and a grant-supported employment training program.

This year’s coordinator of the UI Potato School, Nora Olsen, a potato specialist in Twin Falls, suggested that a class should be tailored to Hispanic farmworkers. The challenge was accepted by county educators Reed Findlay (Bannock County) and Wayne Jones (Bonneville).

Findlay and Jones, speaking in Spanish to an attentive and receptive audience, taught basic skills in soils, irrigation, plant diseases, and insect management. Dean Smith from the Idaho Department of Agriculture (ISDA) talked about chemigation, pesticides, and farm safety. Also assisting from the ISDA were Steve Hobley, Luis Urias, and Tom Salaiz.

“It took a lot of guts,” Findlay said of the first attempt. “We really had to get brave and try it.”
The class had such a good reception that an expanded offering is planned for the 2002 UI Potato School. And the team has taken to the road.

Using the old-fashioned approach of flyers, newspaper articles, and telephone calls, they offered to take their training session direct to Idaho’s farms and speak to foremen and their Hispanic workers. The offer was immediately accepted.

The educators have taken their hands-on class to several locations in southern Idaho so far and the invitations keep coming.

“Farmworkers are more interested in hearing us speak, they are attentive, and there’s no falling asleep,” Findlay said.

UI extension dairy specialist Joe Dalton at Caldwell recognized that the state’s booming dairy industry was using Hispanic laborers in the expansion and “they’re making the front-line decisions in the milking parlor.”

The Southwest Idaho Milking School in June taught English- and Spanish-language sessions in food safety, animal health and care, cow preparation and sanitation, and milk handling and storage, and introduced workers to the latest milking systems.

Instructing the bilingual courses with Dalton were UI extension county educators Wil Cook (Gem) and Scott Jensen (Canyon). They agreed that a more skilled milker would help improve the efficiencies of Idaho’s dairy industry.

“Farmworkers are more interested in hearing us speak, they are attentive, and there’s no falling asleep.”

“Put Your Skills to Work: An Employment Training Program for Low-Income Hispanics,” was a first step away from the traditional Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and Extension Nutrition Program (EFNEP/ENP). Ada County UI extension educators Linda Gossett and Marilyn Bischoff, with immense help from UI bilingual program assistant Magdalena Soto, used a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to have four 10-week sessions held through July.

“Because of EFNEP, we knew where they were,” Gossett said about reaching the targeted Hispanic audience.

The twice-a-week evening classes assisted Hispanics with job search and retention; speaking, reading, and writing skills focusing on vocabulary related to employment; and discovery of community resources that can improve one’s standard of living.

The fourth session that started in May added a half-hour class on computers, taught by Jaimie Lopez, an information technician at Blue Cross, whose wife Virginia attended a former class and who became employed to operate the class child care facility. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided new computers, which were located just across the street at the Garden City Library.

“We know that computers are used in everything,” Gossett said. “The class participants needed to at least not be afraid of them.”

Extension reached a receptive audience with the “Put Your Skills to Work” sessions. “For many of them, this is an awkward, different topic,” Gossett said. “They hadn’t thought about how their skills could be transferable.”
 

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