Effective Good Agricultural Practices Training for Farmers: A Two-day Approach

Introduction: Fruit and vegetable farmers need to understand produce safety, risk assessment, the implementation of food safety practices, and how to develop a farm food safety plan in order to reduce contamination of fresh produce, stay competitive in the market place, and prepare for new produce safety regulations. Many farmers are not prepared to address on-farm produce safety issues or develop a farm food safety plan.

Purpose: Provide Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) education and training for farmers so they can perform a risk assessment of their own farms, develop a farm food safety plan, and implement food safety practices such as GAPs to reduce identified risks.

Methods: A two-day GAPs training and food safety plan writing workshop was developed for fruit and vegetable farmers. The first day is focused on increasing produce safety knowledge and learning how to conduct a farm-wide risk assessment while the second day is focused on the farmers developing their own unique farm food safety plan. All workshops are evaluated for effectiveness and long-term follow up data is actively gathered.

Results: Since 2009, fourteen workshops with over 250 participants have been conducted throughout the state of New York. Ninety-nine percent of the participants would recommend the training to others and by the end of day two of the workshops, more than half the participants had completed over 50% of their farm food safety plans.

Significance: Fresh fruit and vegetable farmers are receiving training that is improving their food safety knowledge which allows them to perform on-farm risk assessments and develop farm food safety plans to address identified risks. This allows them to stay competitive in the market place while reducing food safety risks.