Moving the needle on racial equity in Extension

During the "Serving Farmers of Color" webinar in 2021, moderated by UC ANR's Stephanie Parreira, farmers shared their perspectives. Clockwise from lower left: Victor Hernandez, Chanowk Yisrael, Kristyn Leach, Parreira and Sonja Brodt.

A recently published series of blog posts on the Connect Extension website shares insights on developing authentic, meaningful relationships with racially and culturally diverse groups.

Written by Sonja Brodt, associate director of the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and Gail Feenstra, emeritus SAREP director, the posts are based on what they learned during UC SAREP's "Racial Equity in Extension" webinar series.

The series, comprising six 90-minute webinars held in 2021, covered topics ranging from building relationships with agricultural communities of color, to respecting different knowledge systems, to rectifying racial inequities in land access.

“As extension professionals, especially for those of us in the public sector, it is incumbent upon us to work with all segments of our state's agricultural and natural resources clientele,” said Brodt. “And to do so effectively, we need to understand their worldviews and what's the knowledge base that shapes their decisions. This is especially important when those people are from cultures or segments of society that have a history of being marginalized or oppressed by our larger society, and whose significant knowledge has often been made invisible.”

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