Hmong farmers in Minnesota have little access to culturally-relevant, easy-to-understand pesticide education materials.

To meet this need, this project worked with Hmong farm families to develop educational materials, compare the effectiveness of various education methodologies, and expand the current Agricultural Health and Safety Program at the University of Minnesota to include pesticide and chemical safety education for Hmong and other limited-English proficiency (LEP) farmers.

This project led to new partnerships with the pesticide applicator training staff at UMN and their counterparts at MDA who administer the program. “We are now able to point Hmong farmers to the correct staff when they need help becoming a certified applicator.”

The posters developed for this project are used frequently by the Minnesota Food Association’s Immigrant Farmer Training program and by Hmong American Partnership when they talk about chemical and worker safety with farmers.

• More information about the On-Farm GAPS Education Program at the University of Minnesota: http://safety.cfans.umn.edu/