Cultivating triumph over disabilities

[Guest guest]

Cultivating triumph over disabilities

Organization gives impaired, injured farmers the tools to get back

to work

By Maureen Groppe

Star Washington Bureau

www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

AID=/20070728/LOCAL/707280479/1195/LOCAL18 (photo at link)

WASHINGTON -- After a gunshot wound 25 years ago left Ed Bell

paralyzed from the armpits down, he couldn't imagine how he could

continue operating his 72-acre hog farm.

But Bell, who has lived on his family's farm since he was 7, also

didn't see himself doing anything but farming.

So Bell, now 46, got rid of his hogs, shifted to strawberries,

raspberries and asparagus, and overhauled his Hagerstown, Ind., farm

to make it more accessible to his wheelchair.

" What do you got to lose? " Bell said. " It sure beats laying in a

nursing home. "

Bell got help adjusting to his new situation through a program that

helps disabled farmers stay on the farm.

" Disabilities should not prevent anyone from having a career in

agriculture, " Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said earlier this

month, announcing $3.7 million in " AgrAbility " grants.

Purdue University got one of those grants -- $180,000 for Breaking

New Ground, the state program to help disabled farmers. Indiana

started its program long before the federal grants were created.

In 1979, a farmer who had been paralyzed in a truck accident asked

Purdue for help in figuring out how to get from his wheelchair into

his tractor. The school sent some engineering students, who devised

a lift.

" That's how the program started, " program manager

said. " From there, it just expanded by word of mouth. "

When the federal AgrAbility grants were created in 1990, the Purdue

program served as one of the models, said. Land grant schools

like Purdue are paired with nonprofit disability service

organizations to run each state's AgrAbility program. The program

helps those injured both on and off the farm or those with illnesses

such as arthritis, vision problems or complications from strokes.

Each year, one out of nine Indiana farm families experiences a farm-

related injury, according to Purdue.

Federal funds don't pay for adaptive equipment the farmer may need,

but the program can point them toward organizations that can help

them.

Breaking New Ground workers make 80 to 120 farm visits annually to

assess sites and recommend modifications. Purdue also runs workshops

and conferences, sends representatives to farm shows and provides

training for assistive technologies.

" I just talk to them and tell them what I had to do and how I went

through it, " said Best, a now-retired farmer from Ossian,

Ind., who lost his hand in a corn picker. " Like the surgeon told my

wife when he operated on me, he told her it was going to be up to

her. That I would be discouraged and disgruntled and she's going to

have kick me one in the rear end and tell me to straighten up and

things are going to be all right. That's what she did. "

Bell, who got help from the program on learning what technology was

available to help him, says he continues to surprise himself.

Home by himself the other day, Bell decided not to wait for his wife

and daughter to help him lay an irrigation line.

" I thought, 'Well, I'll just start this.' By the time they got back,

I had it all done, " he said. " For a guy in a wheelchair, to lay it

from the well a thousand feet to where you're going to go irrigate

is a pretty good task. "

Indiana recognized the Bell family's accomplishments by naming them

the Indiana Farm Family of the Year in 2006, an award honoring

contributions to agriculture made both on and off the farm.

Bell said he and his wife, Debbie, joke that although they'd like to

make money off their farm, they're happy as long as they don't lose

money. " We think about all the money we save on psychotherapy, " he

said.