Reflections on the 2025 NTW in Las Cruces, NM
The 2025 National AgrAbility Project’s (NAP) National Training Workshop (NTW) took place in Las Cruces, New Mexico during the last week of March. The workshop convenes AgrAbility staff, clients, partners, and collaborators from around the country to provide professional development, technical resources, creative solutions, and networking. This year’s conference venue was the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, which debuted an AgrAbility exhibit in January of this year. There were over 200 attendees, including Ned Stoller, Assistive Technology Professional, who delivered several sessions; Cade Krieger, a Michigan AgrAbility client and employee of the MSU Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center his mom, Katrina; and Dr. Adam Ingrao (Heroes to Hives), whose attendance was sponsored in part by The Andersons.
Michigan’s NTW attendees at La Posta, the most recommended local restaurant in Las Cruces
Some workshop sessions got participants up and moving, with resistance bands and stress balls and discussions of ergonomics, body mechanics, and combating the effects of heat and cold stress on the body. Other sessions discussed not only “traditional” assistive technology that may be used on the farm, but also smart phone apps that can be useful for anything from remembering tasks or medications to describing aloud what is shown on the camera. There is always a wide range of informative content, making it difficult to choose between them.
The final day, as always, there were local ag industry tours. Our group visited the Santa Teresa Cattle Crossing at the US-Mexico border, the largest, most efficient, and most modern facilities on the border, where over 3,000 head of cattle typically cross each day. This is about 62% of the cattle that cross between Mexico and the US, equating to about $625 million in import and exports. Most of the cattle that enter the US at Santa Teresa proceed to feedlots in west and midwestern states. This mass movement of cattle across thousands of miles brought to mind the importance of the work of MSU’s ERAIL (Emergency Response to Accidents Involving Livestock) team and their award-winning work in MI.
From there, we continued to the Rio Grande Winery for lunch and presentations from NMSU scholars about radio collars for virtual fencing on large grazing areas. The radio collars also have applications through an AgrAbility lens because they allow farmers and ranch hands to monitor cattle movement and distribution without having to constantly be on the search for their animals, saving time and money, and improving efficiency.
We ended the day on the campus of New Mexico State University, where we first visited the NMSU Therapeutic Riding Program, which is “designed to improve the quality of life for people of different ages and abilities by using horsemanship programs and outdoor experiential education to develop confidence, self-worth, and active community participation.” The instructor showed the various tools the team and volunteers use to help prepare students to ride a horse, including modified reins, handles, belts and cushions to help those with little core strength sit safely on a saddle, and other tools for nonverbal students. We then had the opportunity to spend time with a few of the therapy horses. We ended the day with a tour of the meat lab and Food Science, Security, and Safety Center.
Samantha Wolfe, MSU Extension
Written for Michigan AgrAbility
wolfesa4@msu.edu
This work was supported by the AgrAbility Competitive Program of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), grant number 2022-41590-38121.