Recipient Organization
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
202 HIMES HALL
BATON ROUGE,LA 70803-0100
Performing Department
School of Nutrition and Food S
Non Technical Summary
The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule (PSR) requires that all agricultural water must be safe and of adequate sanitary quality for its intended use. Several methods are currently available for water treatment such as chlorination, chlorine dioxide, ozone, filtration and UV treatments. However, not all the methods are suitable for on-farm surface water treatment due to their complexity and variability in effectiveness. Fruit and vegetable producers using surface water to irrigate crops are required to have appropriate water treatments in place that do not leave any chemical residue. The overall goal of this project is to reduce the food safety risk associated with the surface water source in Louisiana. The LSU AgCenter has developed and validated several on-farm water treatment methods using chlorine dioxide, ultraviolet-C light, and zeolite water filtration system. To achieve our goal, we will use the resultsfrom our on-farm studies to develop and deliver hands-on training, tools, and resources for fresh produce growers that rely on surface water for irrigation.The project will include participation from LSU AgCenter, Southern University, Southern Center, Produce Safety Alliance (PSA), Louisiana Department of agriculture and forestry, local food hubs, non-governmental organizations, other community-based organizations.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule (PSR) requires that all agricultural water must be safe and of adequate sanitary quality for its intended use. Several methods are currently available for water treatment such as chlorination, chlorine dioxide, ozone, filtration and UV treatments. However, not all the methods are suitable for on-farm surface water treatment due to their complexity and variability in effectiveness. Fruit and vegetable producers using surface water to irrigate crops are required to have appropriate water treatments in place that do not leave any chemical residue. The overall goal of this project is to reduce the food safety risk associated with the surface water source in Louisiana. The LSU AgCenter has developed and validated several on-farm water treatment methods using chlorine dioxide, ultraviolet-C light, and zeolite water filtration system. To achieve our goal, we will use the results from our on-farm studies to develop hands-on training, tools, and resources for fresh produce growers that rely on surface water for irrigation. The specific objectives are: 1) Develop and deliver a one-day agriculture water safety curriculum integrated with hands-on training 2) Evaluate the impact of education and training programs. The LSU AgCenter and Southern University extension programs will work in collaboration with the Southern Center, Produce Safety Alliance (PSA), Louisiana Department of agriculture and forestry, local food hubs, non-governmental organizations, other community-based organizations to carry out the training programs consistent with FSMA Produce Safety Rule requirements.
Project Methods
Objective 1: Develop and deliver a one-day agriculture water safety curriculum integrated with hands-on trainingProposed Project Activities: An extension associate will be hired at the LSU AgCenter who will coordinate the project activities with the collaborators and the stakeholders of this project. A project kick-off meeting with all participating institutes, organizations and stakeholders will be held at LSU AgCenter. During the meeting, a working group comprising all key project personnel will be established. This meeting will be chaired by the project PI to discuss current activities, roles, resources, and areas of strengths of each individual entity and identify barriers and gaps on FSMA agricultural water compliance by the small and mid-sized local food systems.The inventory of fresh produce farms developed through the partnership of relevant stakeholders, multi-county short evening meetings, surveys, and questionnaires as well asfeedbackthat we received from our previous GAPs and GHPs workshops and FSMA related training programs will be carefully evaluated to develop highly-customized educational training material consistent with current FSMA guidelines and requirements. More specifically, we will identify farms in Louisiana that use surface water sources and are growing crops that are consumed raw.During the kick-off meeting, we will further brainstorm barriers, missing pieces for our state's industry, and establish working groups to address gaps. The project team will evaluate current scientific publications and LSU AgCenter's on-farm research results related to agricultural water treatments and use the research findings to develop a one-day water workshop.New customized educational tools and resources will be developed that will assist producers to collect water samples and identify alternatives to meet the FSMA PSR agricultural water quality requirements. The project team will work very closely with Southern Center and the PSA regional coordinator while developing customized educational material for the target audience. Communications with the collaborators and stakeholders will be through electronic mailing, telephone conference calls, and SKYPE to discuss project progress, evaluate performance and exchange information. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter will also be used to disseminate information to the interested stakeholders, receive public inputs from stakeholders and utilize thoroughly evaluatedfeedbackfrom past training programs and workshops to develop customized training and outreach programs for target audiences.A mobile water treatment system for demonstration purpose will be developed on a trailer which will havea small-scalewater treatment system with sanitizer, UV-C light, and activated zeolite. Five on-farmtrainingswill be hosted around Louisiana to train producers on water sample collection and treatments to comply with the FSMA Produce Safety Rule Agriculture water quality requirements. The mobile water treatment systems will be used during the on-farm training to demonstrate and provide hands-on training to producers for surface water treatments using sanitizers, UV-C light, and activated zeolite.Techniques to be employed in this project, including their feasibility and rationale:A three-pronged approach will be used in this project to develop and deliver agriculture water quality related educational training and outreach programs. This will include: 1) Development of web-based educational tools, 2) Offering in-class workshops and training programs, and 3) Conducting on-the-field hands-on training and demonstration sessions, to train growers on water sampling and surface water treatments.In the web-based approach, an extensive database of currently available food safety educational materials, FSMA regulatory guidelines, compliance verification tools, and other resources from various sources such as federal and state agencies, national fruits and vegetable associations, Produce Safety Alliance and Food Safety Preventive Control Alliance, and nation-wide university extension programs will be compiled together on the LSU AgCenter Food Safety webpage. The LSU AgCenter is currently working with the National GAPs to convert their decision tree publication into a web-based application format (http://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/food_health/food/safety/producer/on-farm%20food%20safety/how%20to%20use%20the%20decision%20trees). This web-based application directs users to appropriate educational and training material in the database when navigating through a questionnaire in the decision trees. This application is designed in such a way that whenthe requiredinformation is entered, the answer or recommendation will be related to the new FSMA regulations. The educational materials and tools developed from this project will also be translated into alternative languages such as Vietnamese and Spanish to ensure the wider reach of the developed web-based educational materials to the target audience across the three states and beyond.Objective2)Evaluate the impact of education and training programsEvaluation Approach: An objectives-oriented approach will be used for this evaluation (Fitzpatrick, Sanders, & Worthen, 2004).Subjects: A census of trainers and small and mid-size local food systems program participants will be used. Primary study approval will be administered through the LSU AgCenter Institutional Review Board. Privacy and confidentiality will be maintained by the investigators.Methods: Archival data and surveys will be used to describe program development and implementation (Borgatti, Everett, & Johnson, 2013; Fitzpatrick, Sanders, & Worthen, 2004). Specific information that will be captured will include the following:number of FSMA related education outreach and technical assistance programs and resources developed or modified,number of FSMA related FDA recognized, and other training delivered,number of materials translated into audience-specific languages,a number of web users by location, language, interaction, visits, connection speed, keyword search, exits page, bounce rate, entrances to a fact sheet, clicks on a tool, and page views.A survey will be developed specifically for this evaluation to measure each of the following:trainers' confidence to deliver food safety educational training,program participants' knowledge of food safety and sanitation practices,program participants' adoption of food safety practices,program participants knowledge of agricultural water sampling and treatment options andprogram participants' implementation of FSMA PSR Agricultural water quality requirements.Following each training, a retrospective pre-test questionnaire (Pratt et al., 2000) will be conducted to measure theperception ofchanges pertaining to knowledge and understanding of the course. The impact of adopting new food safety practices and the progress on implementation of FSMA Produce Safety rule will be evaluated every year.Web users' data collection:Website usage analytical programs (i.e., Google Analytics) will be used to track user engagement. Dimensions that will be tracked include user location (state, parish or county, city), language, user interactions, visits, connection speed,keywordsearch, and exit page (last page user visited). Dimensions will be tracked using the following metrics: bounce rate (percentage of single-page visits), the number of entrances to afact sheet, the number of clicks on a tool and page views.