OAKLAND, Md. — It’s no secret that farming is hard work. Many aspects of the job demand physical labor, and farmers know that some tasks will be harder than others. But they do what is needed to get the job accomplished. However, for some people, even everyday chores become challenging because they have a disability, and they can’t always perform tasks like everyone else.

One organization is currently working to help farmers with disabilities to meet the challenges that they face. Delaware-Maryland AgrAbility workers believe that “when a disability strikes a farm family, everything changes except perhaps the desire to continue farming.”
AgrAbility specialist Coit Custer of Oakland has first-hand experience with dealing with a disability.
“In 2001, I was involved in a car accident, and was being treated for whiplash and severe muscle spasms. Two weeks after that, I had my first seizure,” he explained. “A year after that, I had another seizure, and I’m on medication now that controls the seizures. They actually told me last February that I wasn’t allowed to do any farming. They just don’t want me operating equipment, and that makes it hard. It’s really put a damper on things.”
Coit is a fourth-generation farmer. He and his wife, Melissa, have two children, and they currently live on a corner of his parents’ 30-acre farm. They are working on rebuilding a homestead from the late 1700s.
“I’m hoping that some time in the near future I can take over the farm and bring the fifth generation up in the same type stuff that I was brought up in,” he said.
But when he was growing up, Coit wasn’t exactly thrilled with the family legacy. Instead, he thought that he needed to get away from farming.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the farm is exactly where I need to be, especially with the new realm of having a disability, and going through all of that,” he said. “Farming has been more beneficial to me than anything else has. What I do on the farm is just as much therapeutic as any kind of medication.”
Coit noted that he appreciates learning through the “school of hard knocks.” Growing up, a lot of the equipment on their farm was converted horse-drawn equipment.
“Being raised on a farm and doing it the way they did 100 years ago, I’ve really learned to appreciate the history that farming has,” he said. “Some farmers who are up in their age are now finding themselves with a disability, whatever it may be. It’s still important to keep them on the farm and to keep that farm going. It’s awful easy to sell a farm and make a ton of money, but if you sell the farm, it’s almost like you’re selling the farmer’s soul.”
Before Coit came to AgrAbility, he spent five years working at the Regional Eye Center in Oakland. They also conducted a low vision clinic in Cumberland, which was held at the Resources for Independence office.
“I just happened to notice the AgrAbility brochure hanging on the wall, and I started asking questions,” Coit explained. “With having a disability myself, everything I saw about the program was just perfect, and I wanted to be more involved with it. With my experience with helping people with low vision, I was able to slide over into the AgrAbility specialist position.”
Lori Magruder of the Avilton area is the executive director of Resources for Independence. She noted that there are currently 20 AgrAbility projects across the nation, and Delaware and Maryland work together. They contacted Lori to ask the organization to partner with them.
“I thought — what a great opportunity for western Maryland, being a farming community, having my heart in Garrett County and coming from a farm,” Lori said. “But I didn’t at that point see how it could fit in, because I thought it was going to be hard to find the right person to provide the services. So it was just perfect whenever Coit showed interest, and it was just a perfect fit — a perfect fit.”
Since that time, Coit and Lori have worked to make connections, and Resources for Independence is now a funded partner with AgrAbility.
“We came in on the grant — it’s typically a four-year grant through the USDA, and we came in last year under the fourth year,” Lori said. “We’re happy to say that April 1, we started another four years, and we have been identified as a major partner. We’re happy to have the program.”
Resources for Independence serves Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties. Under the Delaware-Maryland AgrAbility project, Coit serves the area west of the Bay Bridge.
“It’s just been a perfect fit,” Lori said. “With Coit being a fourth generation farmer and having a disability himself, whenever he goes and visits a farmer and they’re having challenges and struggles on the farm, he’s been there, done that, and is going through it himself, so it’s a wonderful peer relationship. Because of his experience, his compassion and passion to help the farmer with disabilities is just so natural. It just really shows.”
Coit noted that these days, he’s proud to be a farmer. However, he realizes that pride sometimes gets in the way of being able to help a farmer.
“But there’s nothing wrong with that pride,” he said. “You work with it. You work around it, and coming from somebody who has a disability, it’s beneficial because I’m no different than they are. To me, besides servicemen, farmers are where it’s at. True homegrown people.”
Lori explained that Resources for Independence is one of six Centers for Independent Living in Maryland. It advocates for individuals with any type of disability. Their main office is in Cumberland, but they also have advocates working out of their homes in Garrett and Washington counties. The organization provides four core services, including independent living skills training, peer counseling, advocacy, and information referral.
“Those are our four main services,” she said, “but basically, our overall mission is to provide services and resources to individuals so that they remain in their home versus going into an institutional setting. We don’t actually provide funding, but what our advocates do is to seek out the funding and partner with other agencies to bring the complete package to the person with the disability.”
Lori noted that it is fitting for AgrAbility projects to work with the Centers for Independent Living, since both are grant-funded.
As an AgrAbility specialist, one thing Coit is responsible for is speaking engagements to civic groups.
“But the one thing I like most is actually being able to go out to the farm and do on-site assessments,” he said. “I really follow the farmer around for a day and see what his chores are and what he’s responsible for. We go to the farmer, learn the trouble he’s having, and then be able to refer them on to specialists as we need to. Or sometimes we can do a small amount of tinkering to allow them to do just the smallest of farm tasks that everyone else takes for granted.”
Coit gave the example of a farmer with Parkinson’s who was having trouble with tremors, which made it difficult to hook a piece of equipment to his tractor.
“He and his wife were trying to hook up this equipment, and there was barely enough room for one person, let alone two,” Coit said. “All I recommended was a 50-cent bungee cord to help steady it, and he’s been happy ever since. So it’s not always high-tech stuff that we do, but for me it’s more of the low-tech.”
Coit didn’t need any special training to move into his job. He noted that he feels that he’s been in training ever since he was born. He remembers wishing that he had a motor on the other side of the fork when he was cleaning out the barn.
“It just all comes together—all of my past experiences on the farm and being associated with the disability side of things,” he said. “I feel like MacGyver, because I can make the quick suggestions to get them through until the perfect piece of equipment is there. Most of the time, they find that the low-tech side of things is actually better than the high-tech.”
Coit noted that finding out what a farmer’s needs are includes assessing inside the house as well.
“If they can’t get through their house, they can’t get to the barn,” he explained.
He also helps with the recreational side of things, such as fishing. One of his current projects involves someone who had polio as a child and is having some recurring problems. He has 11 colonies of bees, and needs help with the lifting the boxes to inspect the colonies. Coit is working on developing a type of crane that can be run by a pump to lift the boxes.
They also helped a woman on the eastern shore who has a poultry operation.
Arthritis created problems for her with removing the dead birds, and she couldn’t use the standard “easy-grabber” because it required pulling. They developed a model that worked with a small electric motor, and the woman can operate it by simply pushing a button.
“A lot of the assistive technology isn’t just focused on the farmers, but it can help anybody,” Coit said. “Just like automatic gate openers — that would benefit any farmer, not having to open the gate. Of course, the person on the passenger side of the truck wouldn’t have anything to do…Still, it saves time. It’s really making life easier for anybody with a disability.”
Coit noted that they also work closely with the extension service, soil conservation, and others who are already helping the agriculture industry.
Coit explained that they held back on working in Garrett County at first because they weren’t sure that the funding would available, and he didn’t want to make promises that he couldn’t keep. Now that the grant has come through, he’s anxious to help people in this area as well.
Currently, there are 16 people on his list.
“The main thing that we do is to think outside the box,” Coit said. “Some of our servicemen are coming home with disabilities, so one of the things we can do if any of our servicemen are interested in starting up a small farm, we can do farm layouts to make it easy on them. We can do that with existing farms, too.”
Coit noted that he finds his job very rewarding.
“It’s a really fun job,” Coit noted. “The pay is one thing, but when you can see you’ve helped a farmer, or have helped anybody with a disability, and you see that smile come across the face…That’s when you’ve hit the land of milk and honey.”
For more information, persons may contact Resources for Independence at 800-371-1986 or 301-784-1774. The e-mail address is mdagrability@rficil.org.

8.15.2006

By Brenda Ruggiero
Courtesy The Republican