Ep 01. Introduction to the Seeds of Wellbeing (SOW) project with Dr. Thao Le

Aloha & Welcome to the SOW podcast aimed to provide educational support, information, guidance and outreach to farmers, ranchers, and allied agricultural producers in Hawaii. In this episode we introduce the Seeds of Wellbeing project and project director Dr. Thao Le.

This podcast is brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources, and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW Project. This podcast is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

Additional Resources:

• Seeds of Wellbeing Website
• Seeds of Wellbeing - Needs Assessment Survey 

Find out more about us:

• Seeds Of Wellbeing website
• Seeds of Wellbeing Resource Hub
• All the SOW links

Transcript

Shannon Sand  0:15  
Aloha Today's episode is brought to you by the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the seeds of well being or SOW project. This podcast is supported by the farm and ranch stress Assistance Network or FRSAN grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. 

Melelani Oshiro  0:38  
Aloha, welcome, everyone to the SOW podcast aims to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to farmers, ranchers and our allied agriculture producers in Hawaii. We are your hosts Mele Oshiro and Shannon Sand. And today we're going to be talking about the SOW project with Thao Le, a professor in Human Development and Family Studies program at CTAHR and our project director of SOW. Yes. Thank you for joining us, Thao, Can you tell us a little bit about your background and current position? Okay.

Thao Le  1:10  
Hello, everyone. Thank you. Shannon Mele, thank you for including me on this first podcast, I'm happy to introduce the project itself and who I am. I'm currently, like Shannon said, Professor in human development family studies. So prior to that I was at Colorado State University and I gave up tenure and promotion to come to Hawaii because I simply love Hawaii. And I find Hawaii to be my true home. So rather than being a goat, I realize I'm a fish. So here I am. And this project fits perfectly with my heart and interests in promoting well being. I do have a background in behavioral science, Master's in Public Health at UC Berkeley. I'm also a PhD in psychology and always been fascinated by the working of the minds, what makes us well, and what stresses us out.

Melelani Oshiro  2:02  
Nice. Wow, that's very interesting Thao. And I like how you put that, you know, being a being a fish on the island, right? It's a good thing. It's surrounded by water. So can you tell us a little bit more about what is the SOW project? And what some of the goals and objectives of the project?

Thao Le  2:21  
Yeah, so the SOW stands for seeds of well being. And so of course, what is well being well, being is not just physical well being where you will nourish in terms of eating good food, and good nutritions, but also the well being of the mind and the emotion, spiritual and social and relationship. So there will be encompasses all these different dimensions, which are really important. And so how do we nurture and foster and facilitate well being, particularly in these very challenging times, as we all are undergoing? Oh, yeah. And particularly for farmers, right? I think farming and agricultural production used to be on the top in terms of happiest profession, if you will look back in history. But there's not many studies now that are showing that farmers are happy and enjoying what they're doing. So what is going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melelani Oshiro  3:17  
That's very interesting. I think we have we always hear so many different terms relating to stress and wellness or well being, that are mentioned in different conversations, you know, whatnot that we hear. So can you maybe explain a little bit more about what is the differences between these different terms? And, you know, why does why should it matter to our ag producers?

Thao Le  3:40  
Yeah, so wellness is more about preventing disease, like, it's like you go to checkup for the doctor, because they're looking for wellness, they don't really necessarily ask for your well being like taking your, you know, blood pressure, your weight, glucose check, right? So it's the wellness and, and the term wellness itself goes back to the 1960s doing when the response was developing, like take a break, you know, take a break from what you're doing, because, but it has to do with like, recovery, from potentially effects of what's going what you're doing in your life, whereas well being it's not simply an adaptation to existing circumstances that you're just managing, but it's thriving and flourishing. So for agriculture producers, how are they thriving, not just simply adapting to changing circumstances and making a living, but having purpose and meaning in a way that when you wake up, you're like, I'm ready for the day. And I love what I do, and I love the people I'm with and no matter what happens and all the challenges, it's a challenge that I can overcome and deal with, right? Because we know that farmers and producers are very resilient. But it's not simply just resiliency because sometimes the structures that are in place and we adapt to that structure, it could be, you know, not very great structures that we're adapting to, and we're functioning but We're not thriving. So in this project, we're looking at ways to foster not only adaptation, so that we can make a living and feed our families but flourishing. And that's what I'm really interested in. It's the, the flourishing just like a flower. All the conditions needs to be in place or a fruit tree to have beautiful fruits. What are the conditions for ag producers so that we are producing wonderful fruits for ourselves and for our families in our community?

Shannon Sand  5:30  
So how, I guess, how are you planning on going about that, or figuring out what producers needs in turn are in terms of well being?

Thao Le  5:40  
Okay, so, like with everything, it's not an individual effort. So I have a wonderful team, my, I've got Shannon, MLA, you guys are here helping me and helping us on this project. And I've got, we've got other extension faculty on our on our team. So it's a team approach. And so what we're doing is one of the first thing we're doing is a need assessment, because there's studies out there and we have anecdotal evidence, because we know we have folks out there, and we you guys know what sort of our stressors right now that are, yeah. But unless you have data, right, it's not simply anecdotal events, data is power. And it's like, if once we have good data that we can say, Yes, Farmer wellbeing does matter, because we're trying to map out like, what is the relationship between stressors and coping with, let's say, you know, heart disease, or diabetes or flourishing, right. So we have data we can only have like, Yeah, I know, this is related, maybe, you know, this, you know, maybe, you know, he loves got these issues. And now he's got this, but we don't really know we have these strong intuitive sets, which are really important. But one way is for this project is giving us, you know, data, and of course, data can be helpful to advocate for more resources, once we have the information and in some empirical way. So is

Shannon Sand  7:04  
it like a baseline survey or needs assessment? What What exactly are we up to? Basically, what's the plan?

Thao Le  7:12  
Yeah, so it's a needs assessment. But what is what I think is really unique that we're doing in Hawaii, and I'm hoping that Hawaii would become the model for the other states, because the other states are doing the same thing. But Hawaii is so unique in terms of the multicultural population and the diversity of small farmers, which is unlike many on the mainland. So we've got the survey translated into seven different languages, including English is one English is one. So we're hoping to reach out, you know, to other multi lingual populations to Yeah, information. And we're looking at not only the stressors, but the coping styles, and what are resources that act producers in their family one, so we're not only asking the primary act producer, but we're asking their family members, because sometimes, you know, the spouse and the children knows a lot more, and they see a lot more and willing to disclose than the primary ag producer. So we're, we're reaching out to the family members. And that's not necessarily being done on the mainland. So I think that's going to be our contribution to Hey, you guys on the mainland, maybe should us, you know, be more in depth and really connect with the family members as well.

Shannon Sand  8:22  
Yeah, I think, you know, families are generally intimately involved with farming and ranching, at least in my experience. And so they have a great idea of what's going on what those stressors are, for whoever is the main, like farm manager, let's call it that. So or what, but yeah, so I think that's, but not even just for the main farm manager, but just for the whole family in general, you know, it might be different for a family unit than it is for an individual as well. So I think.

Melelani Oshiro  8:51  
Oh, definitely. Yeah, especially when you're working in a family setting, you know, for a business you it's your that's your team, right. So you need you need all those those legs of your team to be well supporting the entire entity of your business. So that's very important, I think.

Thao Le  9:09  
And sometimes your teams don't work very well, just like in families. So what are you

Shannon Sand  9:13  
key with families? It's a big big thing very bad. Like, I get a lot of stuff related to and I it's, it's a big thing, people don't really realize how much families need to like, communicate with each other, especially if you're involved in a business together like farming or ranching. So yeah,

Thao Le  9:32  
right and when you're irritated and

Shannon Sand  9:34  
or affects everything.

Thao Le  9:38  
How do you communicate in a way that's skillful and helpful and not compromise your business or your family relationships? 

Shannon Sand  9:45  
Yeah, definitely not over Sunday dinner or Christmas dinner, any sort of holiday is the recommendation. 

Melelani Oshiro  9:55  
That's the best thing is to designate a time that you meet you know,

Shannon Sand  9:58  
Have an actual like Yeah, business meeting. 

Melelani Oshiro  10:01  
Yeah, definitely. 

Shannon Sand  10:03  
That's always good. 

Melelani Oshiro  10:03  
Yeah. So survey there needs assessment, then Thao. How is it being shared? And people complete the survey or get access to it?

Thao Le  10:12  
Well, there's one is to the link to a website. So right here, right? 

Shannon Sand  10:17  
Yes, we will share that, we'll put it in the show notes, as well as the description box.

Thao Le  10:21  
Okay. And then, of course, you know, through my amazing extension team, we're distributing it through all the various connections. So if you see it, in your email, please do not hit the delete button and ignore it. Because we We really value your input and perspective, because otherwise, we're going to be developing resources that, you know, we think you might need, but it may not be what you really want. Right.

Melelani Oshiro  10:45  
Right. Yeah, I think that's the most important thing about and we the surveys that go out, you know, it takes a little bit of time. This one is, how long do you expect this to take for someone to complete, Thao? 

Thao Le  10:58  
Um, 10 to 15 minutes. 

Melelani Oshiro  10:59  
Okay, so 10 to 15 minutes of your time to complete this survey, helps give us information and data that we can actually put forward to other projects or funding to be able to provide resources to help address some of the information that's provided through the survey. So very important, and we get it, we always sending you guys surveys, we understand. But we appreciate y'all filling them out. And we will value your input. Thank you. Yes, please. Oh, is there anything else you'd like to share about this whole project or whatnot, about the needs assessment survey?

Thao Le  11:39  
Well, you know, I think, you know, we could sort of intuitively all know, what are the common stressors, right. But unless it's until it's shown in bit, you know, in terms of empirical data, like raw data, and actually data, and also like, people say, Well, you know, how does fuel eyelids and the climate changes? How, you know, maybe we should just completely focus on that, because, but they change all the time, these stressors, right? Today, it's this and then tomorrow is another bug. And next day is another pass, and they change, we know what pests are, they come and go people are pests too. Right? So but you know, so how do you manage? And then you've got pesty mind, sometimes thinking ways that are not so nice, but to others. So how are the skills? What are the tools so that no matter what pest comes along? Or what's the next climate challenge that your skills are? There's foundation in your ability to navigate through all this? Right? So the past may change, but how you manage and deal with each? Do you have a strong, strong foundation that will be with you all the time? And so because I think one of the biggest issue we have right now, it's that uncertainty? What's going to be the next challenge? Yeah, what's gonna be the next obstacle? Right? And so if we're constantly being pulled a yak in different ways, like, Okay, today, we do this, and then tomorrow, we do this. And then next day, we do that, and it's like, Oh, my God, I'm so confused. What am I supposed to do next. And I think that caused a lot of uncertainty in terms of anxiety about what we need to do. So hopefully, some of the workings that we're doing on this project is giving folks some toolkits and skills so that they can navigate through all these different life challenges.

Melelani Oshiro  13:19  
So you also mentioned how that you may want to do some interviews with some of our producers, you want to share maybe about that, just so that if they see that invitation, they know what to what give a little heads up to that invitation that may come float in their way.

Thao Le  13:32  
Yeah, thank you, Emily, for asking about that. So at the end of the survey, there's also an option for a deeper dive into these questions, because the survey is many, you know, kind of superficial in terms of checkboxes. And but the interview allows for greater explorations into like the stressors or the copings, or the resources that the individuals would like so and there's different ways we can recruiting for the interview. So one way is through the survey, but another way is, you know, maybe through word of mouth, when you meet with your extension agent, the next time like, Hey, would you participate in this interview? And simply say, yes, when they asked, Oh, when anyone asked my team like these, because your your perspective, and your input is, again, very valuable, because otherwise, we're just going to be doing what we think and you know, that can be dangerous, because, you know, I'm an academic, what do I know? Right? I'm just like reading. I don't know anything. So I it's going to be relying on what what's in the information that you share. So the interviews is another way for us to get a deeper dive and insight.

Melelani Oshiro  14:38  
Yeah. Very good. Well, thank you so much for sharing about the SOW project. We're glad to be able to have you on the show today. And to come and talk story with Shannon and I hope the listeners gain some insight about well being and the project and the survey that's going to be headed out your way. So please don't ignore it. 

Shannon Sand  15:00  
Yes, exactly, exactly. Yes. Thank you Thao for coming on and for all of y'all be sure to visit the seeds of well being SOW website and our YouTube channel listed in the show notes as well as the survey will be linked in both of those. 

Melelani Oshiro  15:17  
And for additional information about this topic, you can see the SOW website which will also be listed in our show notes of the podcast in the description box of our YouTube page. Please complete our SOW needs assessment survey. And thanks again for listening to the SOW podcast, 

Shannon Sand  15:34  
sometimes called sow sometimes depending on the day, 

Melelani Oshiro  15:37  
and depending on your in your background. 

Shannon Sand  15:42  
That's okay, you call it what you want. Alright, before we go show some love for your favorite podcast by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts and anywhere you listen to your podcast. Then stay tuned for next month where we dive deeper into stressors related to farm production. 

Melelani Oshiro  15:57  
A hui hou, Thank you for listening. 

Shannon Sand  15:59  
Mahalo.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai