The Reflector
After suffering a spinal injury in a car accident, graduate student Donald Vowell did not know if it would be possible for him to work on his family’s cattle farm again. He could barely walk after the injury. After five months of rehabilitation, he now walks with the aid of a cane.
Tooling around on the farm, though, is a different story.
Because of a program known as AgrAbility, Vowell is able to drive around the farm feeding and tending to cattle. The program was designed to fit farm equipment with mechanical devices that assist people who have suffered injury and would not otherwise be able to work on their farms. AgrAbility fitted hand controls, side mirrors and steps to Vowell’s all-terrain vehicle to allow him to maneuver around his family’s farm in Choctaw County.
Vowell said the steps on the vehicle let him get on and off the vehicle by himself.
He also said that having help from AgrAbility gave him independence to use the equipment by himself.
“Before, I couldn’t do it alone and now I can do it without having to rely on someone else,” Vowell said.
Herb Willcutt of the Agricultural Extension Center said AgrAbility was developed in the 1980s by Bill Fields of Purdue University.
“Not too many people out there are willing to equip cotton pickers and tractors to get people out of wheelchairs,” Willcutt said. “But that’s where Fields made his headway.”
After successfully lobbying to get AgrAbility spread to states outside of Indiana, over 20 states, including Mississippi, now host an AgrAbility program.
Mississippi’s seven-year anniversary of hosting the program falls in April, Willcut said.
Three departments in the state of Mississippi are working together on this project.
It involves the unviversity’s T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability, the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services and Emily Knight, an AgrAbility program assistant within the Extension office.
Although the farm bill that established AgrAbility in the 1980s bans these groups from buying equipment directly, the three organizations work together to develop ways to help those in an agricultural vocation.
“We’re trying to bridge the gap between the three organizations,” Willcutt said.
The teams worked together to combat the problem of a 21-year-old turf farmer who suffers from cerebral palsy. AgrAbility installed a sling lift to get him on and off the tractor and built hand controls for him.
“We built the controls as a prototype to show that it can be done,” Willcutt said.
He said because of this fact, they were not buying equipment directly and were violating the Farm Bill.
“He loves being able go get out in the spring to farm. It makes him feel like he’s doing productive work,” Willcutt said.
Professionals are not the only ones helping out with the project. Willcutt said that for a work project four or five years ago members of Alpha Gamma Rho installed cattle gaps on the farm of a person who suffered from a spinal cord injury.
One of the main purposes of AgrAbility is to link people with disabilities to different groups and organizations that provide some sort of service, like the members of AGR. Knight said that the program is free. It focuses on promoting agricultural success for people with disabilities.
“It’s good for their self-esteem and for their families,” she said.