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UGA Tifton breaks ground on Agrability

By Jay Polk - bio | email

TIFTON, GA (WALB) – Hubert Von Holten has been a farmer in Indiana for most of his life. What does he grow?

 "Corn, beans and wheat," he said.

Even being stricken by polio at an early age didn't slow him down.

"I had to everything that my brothers did to scooping manure to milking cows to drive tractors," he said.

And that forced Hubert to be creative in coming up with ways to get the work done.

"I got to thinking about doing different things and different ways of doing it to make it easy for myself," he said.

Hubert persevered and today has a business building lifts for other farmers like himself, but as it turns out, he's not alone.

According to Rebecca Brightwell, Associate Director of the Institute on Human Development and Disability at the university of Georgia, "in Georgia, there's between 25,000 and 35,000 farmers living in agricultural households that are believed to have some type of disability."

Equipment like a tractor with a lift mechanism can help farmers with disabilities lead fuller lives and get back to doing what they do best. But now there's a central place for farmers with disabilities to see all of the latest technology available to help them.

Welcome to Agrability.

"It'll be a place where farmers can come, they can see a lot of the different adaptations," said Brightwell.

Adaptations such tools that can operated with only one hand. The University of Georgia campus in Tifton is donating the land for the demonstration farm. But that's not all that they're bringing to the table. One of the faculty members at UGA Tifton is already helping out.

"His group helps with designing and adapting equipment for the use of those people with disabilities," said Joe West, Assistant Dean of the University of Georgia, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

And Agrability isn't even just about farming, it's designed to help the overall life of agricultural families that have been touched by a disability.

"Understanding how to help them with rehabilitation counseling, assistive technology and identifying ways to support the families," said Laura Jolly, Dean of the university of Georgia College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Eventually, the hope is that for all farmers with disabilities, opportunities to make a living off of the land will continue to grow.

Agrability will be the first of its kind in the world and is scheduled to open in late 2010.

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