Source: PURDUE UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
FOOD SAFETY EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR VETERAN FARMERS
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1017194
Grant No.
2018-70020-28851
Cumulative Award Amt.
$74,938.00
Proposal No.
2018-05219
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2018
Project End Date
Aug 24, 2020
Grant Year
2018
Program Code
[A4182]- Regional FSMA Center
Recipient Organization
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
WEST LAFAYETTE,IN 47907
Performing Department
Food Science
Non Technical Summary
Over 400,000 military veterans, approximately 8.6% of the adult population, live in Indiana. Following their service or deployment, veterans may return home with a wide variety of conditions related to physical and emotional trauma that potentially hinders them from successful re-integration. Farming can offer veterans opportunities to build on skills learned in the military (discipline, the ability to work long hours, sense of service) to provide for themselves and their families while also working in a therapeutic environment that can help them adjust to civilian life. Veteran farmers, like other small acreage farmers, must implement food safety management plans to develop sustainable farming business. There are limited programs that provide effective food safety training to veteran farmers and addressing their unique needs and barriers. This project will utilize qualitative and quantitative research approaches to 1) identify the barriers and needs of veteran farmers related to food safety regulations and practices in a sustainable farming system; 2) develop a culturally tailored food safety outreach program that addresses the barriers and motivators identified and utilizes different educational interventions to increase knowledge level and practice compliance, impacting day-to-day food safety challenges on farm; 3) translate the information gained from the project into a replicable audience-focused extension program that empowers more veteran farmers and other socially disadvantaged farmers to incorporate and practice food safety plan on farm. This outreach project partners with local farmer groups, like Farmer Veterans Coalition Chapter of Indiana (FVC-I), and other USDA supporting service, like AgrAbility, and uses learning circles, positive deviance, and other multi-facet intervention to develop an enhanced food safety education program that is consistent with FSMA guidelines. The ultimate goal is to increase the self-efficacy of the farm business management and compliance of food safety programs among veteran farmers; and improvetheeconomic healthand viabilityofthe Indiana veteran communities.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
90362103020100%
Knowledge Area
903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
6210 - Farmer cooperatives;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
Long-term goal: Increase the self-efficacy and compliance of food safety programs among veteran farmers and improvetheeconomic healthand viabilityofthe Indiana veteran farmers.Goal 1: Gain an in-depth understanding of the barriers and motivators of veteran farmers related to food safety regulations and practices in a sustainable farming system.Objective 1.1: A series of focus groups will delve into veterans' perceptions of food and agriculture science, food choice, food handling and food industryObjective 1.2: Administrate a validated web-based survey among veteran farmers in Indiana via the email list from collaborating extension and farmer groupsGoal 2: Veteran farmers gain relevant knowledge on day-to-day food safety challenges on farm and are inspired to develop and implement food safety plans.Objective 2: Develop a culturally tailored food safety outreach program that addresses the barriers and motivators identified in Goal 1 and utilizes different educational interventions.Goal 3: Translate the information gained in goals 1 and 2 into a replicable audience-focused extension program that empowers veteran farmers and other socially disadvantaged farmers to incorporate and practice food safety plan on farm.Objective 3.1: Further develop a supportive community of veteran farmers by multi-facet interventions to increase compliance of food safety practices on farm.Objective 3.2: Develop a train-the-trainer webinar for extension educators in Indiana to work with Veterans on food safety issues that will sustain the education efforts and resources from the project.
Project Methods
Objective 1.1: A series of focus groups will delve into participants' perceptions of food and agriculture science, food choice, food handling and food industry. A qualitative research approach, i.e. the Belasco Triangle focus group (Belasco, 2008), will be used to pilot test the questionnaire. Upon obtaining IRB approval and recruiting study participants, a total of three 1.5-hour focus groups (n=30, with 10 per group) will be conducted. Focus groups take advantage of group communication to gain insight into respondent's attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences, and reactions to a specific topic of interest. Potential participants will be pre-screened to ensure that they meet the eligibility criteria and assigned to a focus group based on their demographic characteristics (e.g. scale of their establishment). The focus groups will be conducted using a semi-structured protocol to validate the questions and uncover challenges not included in the questionnaire. All sessions will be audio-taped, transcribed verbatim, reviewed for accuracy, and entered into and analyzed using NVivo (version 11.4.3, QSR International, Cambridge, MA), a qualitative data management software program.Objective 1.2: Administrate a validated web-based survey among veteran farmers in Indiana via the email list from collaborating extension and farmer groups.A revised questionnaire will be developed into a web-based survey. After IRB approval, the survey will be disseminated to an email list that will be generated from the collaborating farmer groups (including Farmer Veteran Coalition Chapter of Indiana FVC-I) and Purdue county Extension offices. The target participants will be veteran military farmers in Indiana. The data will be analyzed by the PI's lab using SPSS, a quantitative data management software. A conceptual framework will be developed that highlights the knowledge, cultural, and practice factors that contribute to food safety plan management decision making among veteran farmers. This framework will help provide insights and deeper understandings of stakeholders' challenges and barriers which can be addressed in the development of the food safety training program.Objective 2: Develop a culturally tailored food safety outreach program that addresses the barriers and motivators identified in Goal 1 and utilizes different education interventionsThe outreach program will be developed with a center-piece, which is a series of newsletter on six food safety topics for veteran farmers. The potential topics will be determined by the results from Goal 1. The content will be peer-reviewed and sourced from FDA and USDA's database. All baseline survey participants will receive the newsletter upon their response in their preferred information delivery form, including email, mail, and social media, like Twitter and Facebook. Among those participants, we will also recruit for Treatment groups 1 and 2 (as shown in the figure).Treatment group 1: A Learning Circle approach will be used to present food safety issues within a larger context of farm management issues identified by the members of the Learning Circle. There is substantial interest among FVC-I members, expressed during recent meetings, in establishing a learning circle. The Learning Circle will initially focus on farm finances (FVC-I members identified this as a key need) and serve as a potential first step toward helping Veterans establish other Learning Circles in different regions of the state. We anticipate that the participants will meet at least six times during the grant. Food safety topics will be delivered by the PI and her grad student using a positive deviance approach and followed by take-home tasks on topic. By the end of the sixth meeting, the participants will complete a post survey and several take-home tasks. Our collaborator, Sara Creech, the president of the FVC-I will recruit and help coordinate the meetings. We will work closely together on the learning ciricles and on contacting FVC-I members to get them to participate.Treatment group 2: The participants will meet one time at a full-day workshop held at on a working farm. (Chastain and Gibson have substantial experience with organizing similar workshops from their beginning farmer grant.) Four regional workshops will be organized in Indiana. Each workshop will consist of two parts, with one as specific technical topic that has been identified through past needs assessments FVC-I members and the other as food safety condensed session covering all 6 key topics that were delivered in Treatment group 1 and the newsletters. Potential topics for the technical sessions include 1) selection and acquisition of appropriate agricultural equipment, 2) sustainable and organic farming, 3) marketing of agricultural products, and 4) scale up to wholesale and value-adding. The workshops will focus on hand-on learning and activities. For example, a recent workshop cosponsored by the Indiana AgrAbility Program (IAP) and Farmer Veteran Coalition Chapter of Indiana (FVC-I) on mushroom production taught participants to inoculate logs (each participant inoculated their own log) and the participants took the logs with them at the end of the workshop. Another recent workshop focused on beekeeping with over 30 participants who received a complete hive to encourage them to start a new farm enterprise after completed the training. We anticipate that 25 participants will attend each workshop (100 participants for all four workshops).Control group: The participants who respond to the baseline survey and receive the newsletters but not participate in treatment group 1 and 2 will be invited to complete web-based post surveys. We will send the survey to all veterans on our mailing list who do not participate in the learning circle or workshops. We anticipate that the surveys will be sent to approximately 100 veterans.?Objective 3.1: Further develop a supportive community of veteran farmers by multi-facet interventions to increase compliance of food safety practices on farm. By delivering the periodic newsletters, hosting regional workshops, and coordinating learning groups, the Purdue veteran farmer food safety outreach program will develop a supportive community knowledgeable about food safety. This collaborative effort of Indiana AgrAbility Program (IAP), Purdue Extension, and Farmer Veteran Coalition Chapter of Indiana (FVC-I) will develop capacity for efforts beyond the duration of this proposal to address food safety and diversifying farming system challenges and barriers among veteran farmers and other social disadvantaged communities.Objective 3.2: Develop a train-the-trainer webinar for extension educators in Indiana to work with veterans on food safety issues that will sustain the education efforts and resources from the project. A train-the-trainer webinar will be developed and delivered via WebEx or Zoom by PI and Co-PIs on the different topics in the curriculum and effective ways to work with Veterans to the extension educators in the state. The webinar will also be recorded and available for future use nationally. The webinar will share the evaluation results from outreach program in Goal 1 and 2. After attending the webinar, the educators will know which educational intervention is more effective, how to implement and moderate a learning circle group, and how to deliver the positive deviance curriculum to veteran farmers.

Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Indiana is a rural state with a large veteran population. Over 400,000 military vetarans, approximately 8.6% of the adult population, live in Indiana (United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016). Nearly half of Indiana veterans are 65 years or older but 14% (approximately 59,000) are under 40 years old. Women comprise approximately 7.4% and minorities comprise approximately 13% of all Indiana veterans. Thus, many veterans in Indiana also belong to groups identified by the USDA as socially disadvantaged. Farming can offer veterans opportunities to build on skills learned in the military (discipline, the ability to work long hours, sense of service) to provide for themselves and their families while also working in a therapeutic environment that can help them adjust to civilian life (Westlund, 2014). Indiana is a rural state with a large vetaran population. Approximately 14.7 million acres (nearly 2/3 of all Indiana acres) were farmed in 2017 (United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). Only six of the 92 counties in Indiana have less than 1/3 of their total area in farms and most counties have half or more of their total area in farms. This project's target audience is Indiana veteran farmers. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training opportunities for veteran farmers: online newsletters, Learning Circle, and in-person workshops and virtual workshops. Training opportunities for graduate students and undergraduate students: students got funding to learn about extension and present results at local, regional, and national conferences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Present results at major food safety conferences Develop and deliver Youtube videos to reach the target communities Develop and deliver three virtual workshops (during COVID-19 pandemic) and in-person workshop Present results and develop a train-the-trainer program to extension educators What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? rsified farming, with many grow a variety of foods from produce to eggs and poultry. Among those who grow produce, half have heard of FSMA and only 11% have had food safety training before. I like newsletters because I can refer to that when it's 3 am and I can't sleep." (Female, 54-74). In-person workshops provided the opportunities for Veteran farmers to interact with their peers and the experts, however, many Veteran farmers could not make it to those half-day events due to their physical locations and availability to travel. Participants' knowledge increases after each food safety education delivery format on one of the food safety topics, "Indiana Home-Based Vendor Law," which is equivalent to food safety state regulations on cottage foods. Learning Circle has a significantly higher knowledge increase compared with the in-person workshop and online newsletters. The top barriers to food safety education for Indiana Veteran farmers are (1) lack of time to learn; (2) lack of culturally-tailored programs addressing their needs. They perceived the current education information offered was both "overwhelming" and "not enough" in the same time. Those perceptions were contradicting but understandable in the context of their diversified farming business. The food safety regulations and recommendations were consistently provided, however, the information provided was often unclear and hard to digest for farmers [21]. Veteran farmers face many challenges, including making profit and sustaining their businesses. Food safety was just one of those challenges. They perceived food safety information "burdensome" rather than "helpful." An Indiana Veteran farmer emphasized, in a focus group, that food safety regulations was onerous: "In the regulations of food, it seems like there are a lot of lobbies like the beef lobby, dairy lobby, which are very burdensome (for farmers)."

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Gibson, K. submitted. Food Safety Education for Military Veteran Farmers: A Case Study of Indianas Home-Based Vendor Law
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Shaw, A., Kinchila, A., Richard, N. submitted. Produce Growers On-Farm Food Safety Education: A Review
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Gibson, K., Chastain, C. 2020 Evaluating the effectiveness of online newsletters in delivering food safety information among Indiana veteran farmers. The Small Farm Conference, Indiana.
  • Type: Other Status: Submitted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Han Chen, Yaohua Feng, Adley Tong. 2020. Home-Based Vendors: Handling & Sanitation. Purdue University. Extension Publication.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Food Safety Program for Military Veteran Farmers. 2020. Retrieved at https://extension.purdue.edu/food-safety-for-military-veteran-farmers/


Progress 09/01/18 to 08/24/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Indiana is a rural state with a large veteran population. Over 400,000 military vetarans, approximately 8.6% of the adult population, live in Indiana (United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016). Nearly half of Indiana veterans are 65 years or older but 14% (approximately 59,000) are under 40 years old. Women comprise approximately 7.4% and minorities comprise approximately 13% of all Indiana veterans. Thus, many veterans in Indiana also belong to groups identified by the USDA as socially disadvantaged. Farming can offer veterans opportunities to build on skills learned in the military (discipline, the ability to work long hours, sense of service) to provide for themselves and their families while also working in a therapeutic environment that can help them adjust to civilian life (Westlund, 2014). Indiana is a rural state with a large vetaran population. Approximately 14.7 million acres (nearly 2/3 of all Indiana acres) were farmed in 2017 (United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). Only six of the 92 counties in Indiana have less than 1/3 of their total area in farms and most counties have half or more of their total area in farms. This project's target audience is Indiana veteran farmers. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training opportunities for veteran farmers: online newsletters, Learning Circle, and in-person workshops and virtual workshops. Training opportunities for graduate students and undergraduate students: students got funding to learn about extension and present results at local, regional, and national conferences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Present results at major food safety conferences Develop and deliver Youtube videos to reach the target communities Develop and deliver three virtual workshops (during COVID-19 pandemic) and in-person workshop Present results and develop a train-the-trainer program to extension educators What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? rsified farming, with many grow a variety of foods from produce to eggs and poultry. Among those who grow produce, half have heard of FSMA and only 11% have had food safety training before. I like newsletters because I can refer to that when it's 3 am and I can't sleep." (Female, 54-74). In-person workshops provided the opportunities for Veteran farmers to interact with their peers and the experts, however, many Veteran farmers could not make it to those half-day events due to their physical locations and availability to travel. Participants' knowledge increases after each food safety education delivery format on one of the food safety topics, "Indiana Home-Based Vendor Law," which is equivalent to food safety state regulations on cottage foods. Learning Circle has a significantly higher knowledge increase compared with the in-person workshop and online newsletters. The top barriers to food safety education for Indiana Veteran farmers are (1) lack of time to learn; (2) lack of culturally-tailored programs addressing their needs. They perceived the current education information offered was both "overwhelming" and "not enough" in the same time. Those perceptions were contradicting but understandable in the context of their diversified farming business. The food safety regulations and recommendations were consistently provided, however, the information provided was often unclear and hard to digest for farmers [21]. Veteran farmers face many challenges, including making profit and sustaining their businesses. Food safety was just one of those challenges. They perceived food safety information "burdensome" rather than "helpful." An Indiana Veteran farmer emphasized, in a focus group, that food safety regulations was onerous: "In the regulations of food, it seems like there are a lot of lobbies like the beef lobby, dairy lobby, which are very burdensome (for farmers)."

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Gibson, K. submitted. Food Safety Education for Military Veteran Farmers: A Case Study of Indianas Home-Based Vendor Law
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Shaw, A., Kinchila, A., Richard, N. submitted. Produce Growers On-Farm Food Safety Education: A Review
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Gibson, K., Chastain, C. 2020 Evaluating the effectiveness of online newsletters in delivering food safety information among Indiana veteran farmers. The Small Farm Conference, Indiana.
  • Type: Other Status: Submitted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Han Chen, Yaohua Feng, Adley Tong. 2020. Home-Based Vendors: Handling & Sanitation. Purdue University. Extension Publication.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Food Safety Program for Military Veteran Farmers. 2020. Retrieved at https://extension.purdue.edu/food-safety-for-military-veteran-farmers/


Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Indiana is a rural state with a large veteran population. Over 400,000 military vetarans, approximately 8.6% of the adult population, live in Indiana (United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016). Nearly half of Indiana veterans are 65 years or older but 14% (approximately 59,000) are under 40 years old. Women comprise approximately 7.4% and minorities comprise approximately 13% of all Indiana veterans. Thus, many veterans in Indiana also belong to groups identified by the USDA as socially disadvantaged. Farming can offer veterans opportunities to build on skills learned in the military (discipline, the ability to work long hours, sense of service) to provide for themselves and their families while also working in a therapeutic environment that can help them adjust to civilian life (Westlund, 2014). Indiana is a rural state with a large vetaran population. Approximately 14.7 million acres (nearly 2/3 of all Indiana acres) were farmed in 2017 (United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). Only six of the 92 counties in Indiana have less than 1/3 of their total area in farms and most counties have half or more of their total area in farms. This project's target audience is Indiana veteran farmers. Changes/Problems: Due to difficulty of recruitment, we have to modify the focus groups into priliminary qualitative interview sessions. We only collected 5 participants' data. We will host more workshops for farmers than the original proposal. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We provided the following training opportunities to veteran farmers: Newsletters: Agriculture water Soil amendment Indiana Home-Based Vendor Law Wildlife, domesticated animals, and land use Postharvest handling and sanitation How to develop a farm food safety plan Food safety of backyard chicken processing Learning circles: In the learning circle, we provided a short presentation on different topics and facilitated a discussion among veteran farmers. First session: Agriculture water Second session: Soil amendment Third session: Indiana home-based vendor law Workshops: Canning workshop: This was a full day workshop. The workshop was a combination of lectures and hand-on experience. Veteran farmers learnt canning food safety in the lecture and they also had chance to make their own canned products in the workshop. At the end, a one-hour presentation on on-farm food safety was provided. Silverthorn Farm/ Lowe farm tours: These two farm tours were composed of two major sessions. The first session was the farm tour, which was led by the farm owner. This allowed the veteran farmers to visit and communicate with other experienced farmers. The second session was the one-hour presentation on on-farm food safety, which delivered the food safety information to the farmers. Goat milk stuff farm tour: We revised the delivery format of the food safety information in the farm tour based on the feedbacks from previous farm tours. In this farm tour, instead of doing lecture at the end, we worked with the farm owner this time and combined the food safety information with the farm tour. The farm owner led the tour in the field and processing facility, and we provided the related food safety information in each stop. This delivery format received more positive feedbacks than previous one. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We disseminated the results via the following venues: National level: International Associations for Food Protection Annual Conference Reginal level: North Central Center for FSMA education annual conference State level: multiple extension educator events What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will submit the following peer-reviewed extension publications: Chen, H., Y. Feng. 2019. On-farm food safety. Purdue extension publication (in Progress). Chen, H., Y. Feng. 2019. Indiana Home-Based Vendor Law-Handling and Sanitation. Purdue extension publication (in Progress). Chen, H., Y. Feng. 2019. Indiana Home-Based Vendor Law-Labeling. Purdue extension publication (in Progress). We will submit the following peer-reviewed journal articles: Chen, H., Y. Feng., A. Shaw. Produce Farmer Food Safety Education: A Narrative Review Chen, H., Y. Feng., K. Gibson. An Exploratory Food Safety Education Program for Veteran Farmers in Indiana We will host the following workshops targeting at veteran farmers and other beginning farmers: Food safety in shared-use and community kitchens. Hands-on food safety program at Purdue Student Farm.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To accomplish the long-term goal: We conducted web-based survey that identify the unique barriers and needs of veteran farmers in food safety education. This provided guidance for more extension educators to better deliver food safety information to this groups. Food safety information was delivered in the learning circle and workshops that increased the self-efficacy and compliance of food safety program among the participated veteran farmers. However, to scale up the impact on more veteran farmers, a sustainable extension education program will be developed. The developed materials, including newsletters, lecture slides, will be used in the development of future extension program. To accomplish goal 1: We did one focus group with four veteran farmers and interviewed one veteran farmer to understand their perspective towards food safety and assess their needs in food safety education. Due to the difficulty in recruiting veteran farmers, our sample size for qualitative data was small. We distributed the web-based survey via Indiana Farmer Veterans Coalition email list. Six-four veteran farmers completed the web-based survey, which assessed the perspective, knowledge, and practices of veteran farmers towards food safety, and identified their barriers and needs in food safety education. To accomplish Goal 2: We implemented three different educational interventions: newsletter, learning circle, and workshops. We developed and distributed seven monthly newsletters on on-farm food safety and Indiana home-based vendor law. And we did three learning circles with a small group of veteran farmers (n=9) to provide an insight on on-farm food safety. Four workshops (n=48), including one canning workshop and three farm tours were held this year that allowed veteran farmers to learning from other farmer peers as well as educators. To accomplish goal 3: The developed extension publication on on-farm food safety and Indiana home-based vendor law will be included in the future extension program as reading materials and the developed lecture slides will also be included as teaching slides. Currently, we are in the stage of collecting the project post-survey data and evaluating the education interventions implemented, after identifying the most desirable learning experience for veteran farmers, a train-the trainer program will be developed for extension educators in order to serve more veteran farmers.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chen, H., Feng, Y., Gibson, K. 2019. Evaluation of food safety education among Indiana veteran farmers. International Association for Food Protection Annual Meeting Abstract P1-72.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: T. Barrett, C. Clymer, and Y. Feng. 2019. Overview of home-based vendor law. FS-30.