Cornell’s Extension/Outreach Assistantship program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences empowers graduate students to tackle real-world challenges alongside local communities and researchers, bridging academic learning with hands-on impact.
Beyond professional development and career exploration opportunities, the EOA program offers a chance for students to strengthen ties to their cultural heritage, particularly within the Hispanic community.
One key initiative of the EOA program in the past years has focused on assisting Spanish-speaking agricultural communities in New York State.
Leo Salgado, a Ph.D. student from Honduras, combines his background in entomology with his passion for community outreach.
“I was surprised that there are so many people who speak Spanish as their first language who own farms here in New York but don’t speak any English,” Salgado said.
According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey of 2019-2020, 78 percent of all farmworkers in the U.S. are Hispanic. The 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture reports that New York alone is home to over 670 Hispanic, Latino or Spanish farm owners who manage more than 81,000 acres of farmland, with the population rapidly increasing over the years.
Recognizing the language and cultural barriers faced by these farmers, Salgado worked on translating pest management materials, such as pesticide safety and crop pest face sheets, from English to Spanish, in collaboration with Prof. Brian Nault, entomology, and Alejandro Calixto, director of the New York State Integrated Pest Management, to help bridge educational gaps for Spanish-speaking farmers.
Similarly, Kensy Rodriguez-Herrera, a Ph.D. student from Honduras, also focused her EOA initiative on making agricultural knowledge more accessible.
Having experienced firsthand the difficulty of finding accessible Spanish-language pest management resources in the US as an international student, Rodriguez-Herrera created a series of YouTube videos with English audio and Spanish subtitles to address this gap. These videos cover essential topics such as pruning cucurbit crops, selecting and growing the best, sweetest watermelons, and managing vegetable pests and diseases.
With a focus on clear visuals and simple explanations, the videos aim to educate a wider audience of Spanish-speaking farmers.
“The EOA program gave me the freedom and opened my mind to new ways of helping my community,” Rodriguez-Herrera said. “I want to help others reconnect with their roots and feel at home.”
The EOA program also extends its reach beyond digital materials by offering in-person outreach to Spanish-speaking farmers through field day events such as the Orange County Field Days in collaboration with the Cornell Small Farm Program. These field days provide a platform for graduate students like Salgado and Rodriguez-Herrera to connect directly with the Hispanic farming community, particularly with children.
“Exposure to these kinds of activities is important to help kids connect back to their roots,” Rodriguez-Herrera said. “When the kids are born here, it’s hard for them to connect to their cultural roots, so I think it is a great way for them to reconnect and develop an interest in agriculture.”
For Salgado, the excitement of young children during these events serves as a reminder of the power of outreach in sparking curiosity in children and providing them with the tools to stay connected to their cultural roots.
Despite the success of the EOA program, Salgado explained that the one-semester duration limits the establishment of a long-term program, particularly in recruiting more Spanish-speaking students with expertise in farming and pest management to focus on the Hispanic community.
Nonetheless, he remains optimistic and envisions future collaborations with Raúl Lemus Garza, the Cornell New York State Integrated Pest Management Program’s first full-time bilingual project specialist, to continue translating pest management documents. Additionally, he aims to recruit more Spanish-speaking graduate students through organizations like the Student Association of the Geneva Experiment Station, which fosters engagement with agricultural issues specific to New York.
In addition to filming YouTube videos, Rodriguez-Herrera continues to support the Hispanic community by hosting her podcast Conexión Profunda: Más Allá de la Ciencia on Spotify and YouTube, where she shares the stories and struggles of Hispanic communities in the U.S.
“Today, digital communication means are easier than ever,” Rodriguez-Herrera said. “I want to help them [the Hispanic communities] leave a legacy and encourage others to keep going and follow their dreams, even though sometimes it might not be easy.”
For many graduate students at Cornell, the EOA program is more than just a career development opportunity — it’s a chance to reconnect with their cultural heritage, inspire future generations and make their communities feel seen and supported.
“This program is something I have always dreamed of doing, and the opportunity that Cornell gave me to help the Hispanic community by creating these videos has opened my mind even more and provided me with more tools to help my community in different ways,” Rodriguez-Herrera said. “Seeing the community receive help from the EOA program makes me happy and proud to see how we are supporting Spanish-speaking farmers.”
Kitty Zhang can be reached at [email protected].