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

Outputs
Target Audience:The IRC in Sacramento's Immigrant and Refugee Food Safety Project primarily targeted three distinct pilot audiences during this reporting period. All three groups are immigrant or refugee farmers who are non-native English speakers and haver educed access to mainstream sources of food safety information (e.g., internet, English-language trainings, in person trainings). All three farmer groups sell their produce directly to the public, through farm stands and through informal channels within their communities, as well as indirectly, to area grocery stores and wholesale buyers. The first group was lu-Mien farmers, most of whom came to California as refugees after the Vietnam War, and who primarily farm strawberries, as well as a few vegetables, on one-to-three-acre leased plots around Sacramento County. Within this group, the IRC worked closely with approximately 20 farmers to deliver training and visual aids on the topic of chemical safety. The second group was Iraqi farmers, who lease 2,500-square-foot farm plots from the IRC's farm in West Sacramento. These farmers arrived in the United States between 2011 and 2015 through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. As current members of the IRC's farmer training program, they are learning about all aspects of farming in California while also learning about food safety best-practices. Within this group, the IRC worked closely with four farmers delivering training and providing a short educational video on the topic of farmer health and hygiene. The third group consisted of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees, who also lease small farm plots from the IRC's farm. These farmers arrived in the United States between 2008 and 2011, and many farmers have been selling their produce at a small farm stand and to local ethnic markets for several years. Within this group, the IRC worked closely with around 15 farmers to deliver training and a short educational video on the topics of compost and manure application as they relate to food safety. In addition to the trainings and products mentioned above, the IRC in collaboration with UC Davis developed a wash station water recirculation system for installation and use at the IRC farm in West Sacramento during this project reporting period. The beneficiaries of this project objective include all farmers enrolled in the IRC in Sacramento's farmer training program. These farmers include one Afghan farmer in addition to the aforementioned Iraqi and Nepali-Bhutanese farmers for a total of 20 farmers. Changes/Problems:During the course of this project, the IRC addressed unexpected challenges and made minor changes to the original design. Initially, the IRC proposed to work with five different groups of farmers to create customized educational content. However, changes that took place during the project period required the team to reduce the number of farming groups to three. Prior to grant funding and early on, a few farmers left the IRC incubator farm because they moved out of state. This reduced the pool of different cultural groups that were farming with the IRC. In addition, it proved challenging to identify other groups of marginalized farmers in the region that could be included in this project due to logistical issues. UCCE cooperative agents working in Northern and Central California were contacted to try to connect with marginalized groups of farmers that they were working with. However, due to the challenges of trying to work with groups that resided farther away from Sacramento and the difficulty of connecting with these farmers in a timely manner, it was not feasible to include them in the project. Therefore, it was decided that three different groups of farmers would be included in this project: Iraqis, Nepali-Bhutanese, and lu-Mien farmers. One other challenge pertained to the prototype water re-use wash station. As mentioned earlier, the process to design and install a prototype wash station that recycled water took longer than expected. This was due to the need to work with different groups of university students over the course of multiple quarters. The wash station was installed by the end of the project and tested but had not been put into everyday practice by the end of this grant period. The challenges were caused by the late installation date in addition to the lack of electricity on the farm itself. The farm has limited electricity provided by solar panels that power a cold storage unit on site and a pump and irrigation system for a quarter of the farm. This power source is not located close to the site of the wash station and this created problems with powering the pump and UV disinfection system that were installed. Despite these challenges, the prototype was demonstrated to work and the UV system proved that it is able to disinfect the water from the wash station. As part of the new FSOP project that was awarded for the next grant period, the IRC will continue to work with the team from UC Davis to further test and revise the wash station to make it more user-friendly and to allow it to operate on a daily basis. Additionally, funds from the project were not drawn down within the 90-day closeout period. Therefore the awardneeded to be reopened in order to draw down remaining funds in ASAP. As a result, a second Final Report was required to be submitted. All activities were performed before August 31, 2019, and no staff time was used from September 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Farm Risk Assessment Training A farm risk assessment was conducted on August 9 and led by Kali Feiereisel, the Food Safety Specialist from CAFF. This risk assessment was a hands-on practical training, with CAFF leading a small group of farmers and IRC staff through the assessment tool. Based on the findings of the assessment, a few areas were identified that required correction. These included creating a record for the application of chemicals applied to the farm, ensuring that there is always soap and paper towels provided at the toilet that is on site, and providing documentation to record when areas on the farm that store produce are regularly cleaned. As an outcome of this training, steps have been taken to correct all of these findings and the IRC is working closely with the farmers to ensure that these changes are sustained over time. Targeted food safety training with farmer leaders After the development of the educational materials (discussed in the Accomplishments section), trainings were held with each group of farmers utilizing the curricula developed. Separate in-person trainings were conducted with five lu-Mien farmers on safe chemical use on August 6 and 7. These trainings were conducted by IRC's Food Safety Specialist in cooperation with UCCE's Small Farms Advisor. Each farmer who participated received a copy of each of the three visual aids in lu-Mien and English. A training on employee health and hygiene, as well compost and manure use on the farm, was conducted on August 24th on the farm that the IRC operates with the Iraqi and Nepali-Bhutanese farmers. This training was led by IRC's farm and market specialist and consisted of an in-person training on these topics that incorporated a screening of the two videos created. In addition to using the videos with IRC's farmers in Sacramento, two other IRC offices, one in Seattle and one in Salt Lake City, also used the videos as part of a training with their farmers. The Seattle office used the manure and compost video with its group of Nepali speaking farmers and the Salt Lake City office used the farmer health and hygiene video with its Arabic speaking farmers. A pre- and post-survey was conducted for each training. The results demonstrate that there were knowledge gains by all groups after participating in the training and using the educational materials that were developed. The average score of correct responses for participants in the chemical safety training increased from 76% before the training to 100% after the training. The average score for participants in the employee health and hygiene videos increased from 46% before the training to 70% afterwards, and participants in the manure and compost increased their correct responses from 66% to 80%. While the results show notable increases in knowledge on these topics, additional work will be required to ensure that behaviors change and are sustained over a longer period of time. This work on sustained behavioral change will comprise a major part of the next FSOP project that IRC will implement. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Content and findings from the pilot project have been shared with key stakeholders in the region. The educational content created was shared with IRC's partners, CAFF and UCCE. The University of California Cooperative Extension office will also share the materials with all other extension agents working throughout the state of California so that other farmers can access this information. As described above, the content was also shared with other IRC offices that are working with similar communities of refugee and immigrant farmers. These farmers in Seattle and Salt Lake City also grow and sell produce direct to consumers, therefore these training materials will help additional farmers protect consumer health in these states. The two videos and three visual aids were posted on the Food Safety Clearinghouse website that is operated by the University of Vermont. The links to these resources is included in this report under the "Other Products" heading. The materials were also shared with the Western Regional Center to Enhance Food Safety (WRCEFS), co-located at Oregon State University. Throughout the project, IRC held regular FSOP coordination calls with the Tucson office, the other IRC FSOP grantee, where learnings and resources around key deliverables were shared across the offices including the assessment questionnaires and topics for the education modules. While the projects were different, the two program teams were able to discuss and learn from each of the program site activities, resources and experiences to further enhance the quality of the overall work. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This is a final report for the IRC in Sacramento's 2018-2019 FSOP project. However, the IRC received a follow-on grant to continue its food safety outreach project efforts. This project is expanding food safety education and training to farmers belonging to marginalized groups in the Sacramento region, with the ultimate goal of supporting these farmers in adopting food safety best-practices and reducing the overall risk of food-borne illness outbreaks originating from their farms. The project will achieve this goal through four main objectives: (1) Develop three complete sets of food safety training curricula each geared towards a different audience of marginalized farmers; (2) Increase adoption of Agriculture food safety best practices among three different groups of marginalized farmers through delivering newly developed curricula and implementing detailed adoption plans; (3) Disseminate tested curricula through nationwide networks; and (4) Monitor the performance of the pilot water re-use wash station and modify the design to create replicable wash station plans for other farmers. This project is building upon the lessons learned and curricula produced during IRC's pilot FSOP project, and includes a Collaborative Engagement Supplement to expand the partnership with University of California, Davis to support the evaluation of the curricula's effectiveness and adoption of best practices by farmers as well as to continue testing the pilot project's water-saving wash station design. This project will work directly with approximately 64 farmers in the Sacramento region and reach hundreds more lu-Mien, Nepalese, and Arabic-speaking farmers across the United States through a range of dissemination activities.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Gather and analyze existing food safety curriculum and resource materials To begin the project, during October and November 2018, the IRC gathered and analyzed food safety curricula and resources from food safety providers and partner organizations. On November 16, 2019, the IRC hosted a project kickoff meeting with food safety providers and partner organizations including the Community Alliance with Family Farms (CAFF), University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE), and Digital Green (the videographer participating in the project at the time). By November 2018, the IRC had created a resource map of existing food safety resources in the region, including resources developed by project partners CAFF and UCCE. These resources helped define the materials that were later created by identifying what materials already existed and in what languages materials were already available. There were no materials available in Nepali or Arabic and very limited materials available in lu-Mien. This reinforced the need to develop customized materials in these different languages. Facilitate a participatory needs and strengths assessment among various key stakeholders The IRC conducted a participatory needs assessment with the groups of farmers in two stages. On November 28, 2018, the IRC developed and conducted a needs and strengths assessment with IRC farmers based in Sacramento, including two pilot groups of Nepali-Bhutanese farmers and Iraqi farmers. This needs assessment included a baseline assessment of food safety knowledge, most common learning styles among the farmer groups, and a survey of most popular food safety topics about which farmers wanted to learn more. On March 5, 2019, the IRC conducted a similar needs and strengths assessment among lu-Mien farmers at their annual meeting with UCCE small farm advisor Margaret Lloyd. Through these surveys and assessments, the IRC determined the topic and format of the educational modules that would be geared toward the Nepali-Bhutanese, Iraqi and lu-Mien farmers. The findings were based off of the main subject areas covered in the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) as they related to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The needs assessments identified the areas where each farming group wanted to learn more. The lu-Mien farmers identified chemical use and storage as a priority area that they wanted to learn more about. The Nepali-Bhutanese identified the use of manure and compost on the farm and the Iraqi farmers identified farmer health and hygiene. Most of the farming groups stated that they preferred to learn through a group training or on site on a participant's farm. The majority of trainings provided to this group utilized this method so participants felt most comfortable. Survey participants from the Iraqi and Nepali Bhutanese communities identified that they watched television and YouTube as a source of entertainment while fewer lu-Mien farmers identified this as a preferred source of entertainment. Based on these findings, discussions and self-identified preferences by farmers themselves, the topics to be covered in the pilot phase and the teaching method to be used were selected. The results of all three needs and strengths assessments were compiled in a report and shared with project partners as well as farmers by late March, 2019. Convene a community-based project committee Throughout the project period, the IRC collaborated closely with the project committee as well as the farmers themselves. Due to the challenges of gathering all groups together in one location, consultations were conducted separately with each group. This enabled the team to meet each group of farmers where they work and discuss these issues in their native languages using translators. A higher-level project committee comprised of extension agents and technical assistance providers in the region who have expertise in agricultural training and FSMA was also formed and their input and guidance was sought throughout the project. These partners included CAFF, which has expertise in providing food safety trainings, and the UCCE Small Farms Advisor, who has expertise and experience designing and delivering trainings on food safety and GAP to small farmers in the Sacramento region. An in-person meeting was held with this committee in February to discuss initial findings from the needs assessments and discuss appropriate and effective education methods and tools, and IRC regularly updated the committee on the status of the project. As the videos and visual aids were being developed by the design studio, Uptown Studios, multiple drafts were shared with CAFF and UCCE and their input and technical advice was incorporated into revisions made to the script and the form and style of the videos. While the educational materials were being developed, the IRC also met with community representatives from each of the three farming groups involved in the project to screen initial drafts of the curricula and solicit feedback and input on the content and style of the materials. The consultation process used with both the participants themselves and with a committee of technical experts in the agricultural field helped lead to high-quality content. Design a pilot outreach and extension module The IRC designed three different pilot outreach and extension modules for this project. The modules were designed primarily between March and June 2019, in close collaboration with project partners UCCE, CAFF, and Uptown Studios (the videography and design studio chosen to replace Digital Green for this project), and community representatives as stated above. As determined from the needs assessments and consultations with the project committee, the three educationalmodules selected to be created were: 1. Video on Employee Health and Hygiene for Iraqi Farmers in Arabic 2. Video on the use of Manure and Compost on the Farm for Nepali-Bhutanese Farmers in Nepali 3. A set of three visual aids on safe chemical use on the farm for lu-Mien farmers in both lu-Mien and English. As all groups of farmers stated that they preferred to learn in a group setting, the videos and visual aids were designed to be incorporated as part of a longer in-person training while also being able to be used as a stand-alone resource that participants could refer to later for guidance. The videos were made using farmers from each group so that the intended audience could identify with the individuals they were seeing in the videos. Voiceovers in the videos were delivered by native speakers of the languages, and for the visual aids a member of the lu-Mien community translated the content. In addition to the educational material created, a prototype water re-use station was designed whereby the water used to rinse produce can be treated and re-used by farmers. This part of the project was carried out in collaboration with the University of California, Davis and three professors. Students in D-Lab studied the feasibility of the idea and designed an initial prototype during the winter and spring semesters under the guidance of Dr. Kurt Kornbluth. Over the summer, between June and August 2019, the prototype was fully designed and installed on the farm in West Sacramento with support from Dr. Maureen Kinyua, an expert in water treatment. At the same time, the UV disinfection system designed and tested by Dr. Bassam Younis, which contains an innovative device to better treat turbid water, was also incorporated into the design. The prototype along with the UV system was installed and has been tested by the students and professors at UC Davis; however, additional work still needs to be completed to make the design fully functional and practical for everyday use.

Publications

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

Outputs
Target Audience:The IRC in Sacramento's Immigrant and Refugee Food Safety Project primarily targeted three distinct pilot audiences during this reporting period. All three groups are immigrant or refugee farmers who are non-native English speakers and have reduced access to mainstream sources of food safety information (e.g., internet, English-language trainings, in person trainings). All three farmer groups sell their produce directly to the public, through farm stands and through informal channels within their communities, as well as indirectly, to area grocery stores and wholesale buyers. The first group was lu-Mien farmers, most of whom came to California as refugees after the Vietnam War, and who primarily farm strawberries, as well as a few vegetables, on one-to-three-acre leased plots around Sacramento County. Within this group, the IRC worked closely with approximately 20 farmers to deliver training and visual aids on the topic of chemical safety. The second group was Iraqi farmers, who lease 2,500-square-foot farm plots from the IRC's farm in West Sacramento. These farmers arrived in the United States between 2011 and 2015 through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. As current members of the IRC's farmer training program, they are learning about all aspects of farming in California while also learning about food safety best-practices. Within this group, the IRC worked closely with four farmers delivering training and providing a short educational video on the topic of farmer health and hygiene. The third group consisted of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees, who also lease small farm plots from the IRC's farm. These farmers arrived in the United States between 2008 and 2011, and many farmers have been selling their produce at a small farm stand and to local ethnic markets for several years. Within this group, the IRC worked closely with around 15 farmers to deliver training and a short educational video on the topics of compost and manure application as they relate to food safety. In addition to the trainings and products mentioned above, the IRC in collaboration with UC Davis developed a wash station water recirculation system for installation and use at the IRC farm in West Sacramento during this project reporting period. The beneficiaries of this project objective include all farmers enrolled in the IRC in Sacramento's farmer training program. These farmers include one Afghan farmer in addition to the aforementioned Iraqi and Nepali-Bhutanese farmers for a total of 20 farmers. Changes/Problems:During the course of this project, the IRC addressed unexpected challenges and made minor changes to the original design. Initially, the IRC proposed to work with five different groups of farmers to create customized educational content. However, changes that took place during the project period required the team to reduce the number of farming groups to three. Prior to grant funding and early on, a few farmers left the IRC incubator farm because they moved out of state. This reduced the pool of different cultural groups that were farming with the IRC. In addition, it proved challenging to identify other groups of marginalized farmers in the region that could be included in this project due to logistical issues. UCCE cooperative agents working in Northern and Central California were contacted to try to connect with marginalized groups of farmers that they were working with. However, due to the challenges of trying to work with groups that resided farther away from Sacramento and the difficulty of connecting with these farmers in a timely manner, it was not feasible to include them in the project. Therefore, it was decided that three different groups of farmers would be included in this project: Iraqis, Nepali-Bhutanese, and lu-Mien farmers. One other challenge pertained to the prototype water re-use wash station. As mentioned earlier, the process to design and install a prototype wash station that recycled water took longer than expected. This was due to the need to work with different groups of university students over the course of multiple quarters. The wash station was installed by the end of the project and tested but had not been put into everyday practice by the end of this grant period. The challenges were caused by the late installation date in addition to the lack of electricity on the farm itself. The farm has limited electricity provided by solar panels that power a cold storage unit on site and a pump and irrigation system for a quarter of the farm. This power source is not located close to the site of the wash station and this created problems with powering the pump and UV disinfection system that were installed. Despite these challenges, the prototype was demonstrated to work and the UV system proved that it is able to disinfect the water from the wash station. As part of the new FSOP project that was awarded for the next grant period, the IRC will continue to work with the team from UC Davis to further test and revise the wash station to make it more user-friendly and to allow it to operate on a daily basis. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Farm Risk Assessment Training A farm risk assessment was conducted on August 9and led by Kali Feiereisel, the Food Safety Specialist from CAFF. This risk assessment was a hands-on practical training, with CAFF leading a small group of farmers and IRC staff through the assessment tool. Based on the findings of the assessment, a few areas were identified that required correction. These included creating a record for the application of chemicals applied to the farm, ensuring that there is always soap and paper towels provided at the toilet that is on site, and providing documentation to record when areas on the farm that store produce are regularly cleaned. As an outcome of this training, steps have been taken to correct all of these findings and the IRC is working closely with the farmers to ensure that these changes are sustained over time. Targeted food safety training with farmer leaders After the development of the educational materials (discussed in the Accomplishments section), trainings were held with each group of farmers utilizing the curricula developed. Separate in-person trainings were conducted with five lu-Mien farmers on safe chemical use on August 6and 7. These trainings were conducted by IRC's Food Safety Specialist in cooperation with UCCE's Small Farms Advisor. Each farmer who participated received a copy of each of the three visual aids in lu-Mien and English. A training on employee health and hygiene, as well compost and manure use on the farm, was conducted on August 24thon the farm that the IRC operates with the Iraqi and Nepali-Bhutanese farmers. This training was led by IRC's farm and market specialist and consisted of an in-person training on these topics that incorporated a screening of the two videos created. In addition to using the videos with IRC's farmers in Sacramento, two other IRC offices, one in Seattle and one in Salt Lake City, also used the videos as part of a training with their farmers. The Seattle office used the manure and compost video with its group of Nepali speaking farmers and the Salt Lake City office used the farmer health and hygiene video with its Arabic speaking farmers. A pre- and post-survey was conducted for each training. The results demonstrate that there were knowledge gains by all groups after participating in the training and using the educational materials that were developed. The average score of correct responses for participants in the chemical safety training increased from 76% before the training to 100% after the training. The average score for participants in the employee health and hygiene videos increased from 46% before the training to 70% afterwards, and participants in the manure and compost increased their correct responses from 66% to 80%. While the results show notable increases in knowledge on these topics, additional work will be required to ensure that behaviors change and are sustained over a longer period of time. This work on sustained behavioral change will comprise a major part of the next FSOP project that IRC will implement. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Content and findings from the pilot project have been shared with key stakeholders in the region. The educational content created was shared with IRC's partners, CAFF and UCCE. The University of California Cooperative Extension office will also share the materials with all other extension agents working throughout the state of California so that other farmers can access this information. As described above, the content was also shared with other IRC offices that are working with similar communities of refugee and immigrant farmers. These farmers in Seattle and Salt Lake City also grow and sell produce direct to consumers, therefore these training materials will help additional farmers protect consumer health in these states. The two videos and three visual aids were posted on the Food Safety Clearinghouse website that is operated by the University of Vermont. The links to these resources is included in this report under the "Other Products" heading. The materials were also shared with the Western Regional Center to Enhance Food Safety (WRCEFS), co-located at Oregon State University. Throughout the project, IRC held regular FSOP coordination calls with the Tucson office, the other IRC FSOP grantee, where learnings and resources around key deliverables were shared across the offices including the assessment questionnaires and topics for the education modules. While the projects were different, the two program teams were able to discuss and learn from each of the program site activities, resources and experiences to further enhance the quality of the overall work. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This is a final report for the IRC in Sacramento's 2018-2019 FSOP project. However, the IRC has received a follow-on grant to continue its food safety outreach project efforts. This project will expand food safety education and training to farmers belonging to marginalized groups in the Sacramento region, with the ultimate goal of supporting these farmers in adopting food safety best-practices and reducing the overall risk of food-borne illness outbreaks originating from their farms. The project will achieve this goal through four main objectives: (1) Develop three complete sets of food safety training curricula each geared towards a different audience of marginalized farmers; (2) Increase adoption of Agriculture food safety best practices among three different groups of marginalized farmers through delivering newly developed curricula and implementing detailed adoption plans; (3) Disseminate tested curricula through nationwide networks; and (4) Monitor the performance of the pilot water re-use wash station and modify the design to create replicable wash station plans for other farmers. This project will build upon the lessons learned and curricula produced during IRC'spilot FSOP project, and will include a Collaborative Engagement Supplement to expand the partnership with University of California, Davis to support the evaluation of the curricula's effectiveness and adoption of best practices by farmers as well as to continue testing the pilot project's water-saving wash station design. This project will work directly with approximately 64 farmers in the Sacramento region and reach hundreds more lu-Mien, Nepalese, and Arabic-speaking farmers across the United States through a range of dissemination activities.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Gather and analyze existing food safety curriculum and resource materials To begin the project, during October and November 2018, the IRC gathered and analyzed food safety curricula and resources from food safety providers and partner organizations. On November 16, 2019, the IRC hosted a project kickoff meeting with food safety providers and partner organizations including the Community Alliance with Family Farms (CAFF), University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE), and Digital Green (the videographer participating in the project at the time). By November 2018, the IRC had created a resource map of existing food safety resources in the region, including resources developed by project partners CAFF and UCCE. These resources helped define the materials that were later created by identifying what materials already existed and in what languages materials were already available. There were no materials available in Nepali or Arabic and very limited materials available in lu-Mien. This reinforced the need to develop customized materials in these different languages. Facilitate a participatory needs and strengths assessment among various key stakeholders The IRC conducted a participatory needs assessment with the groups of farmers in two stages. On November 28, 2018, the IRC developed and conducted a needs and strengths assessment with IRC farmers based in Sacramento, including two pilot groups of Nepali-Bhutanese farmers and Iraqi farmers. This needs assessment included a baseline assessment of food safety knowledge, most common learning styles among the farmer groups, and a survey of most popular food safety topics about which farmers wanted to learn more. On March 5, 2019, the IRC conducted a similar needs and strengths assessment among lu-Mien farmers at their annual meeting with UCCE small farm advisor Margaret Lloyd. Through these surveys and assessments, the IRC determined the topic and format of the educational modules that would be geared toward the Nepali-Bhutanese, Iraqi and lu-Mien farmers. The findings were based off of the main subject areas covered in the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) as they related to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The needs assessments identified the areas where each farming group wanted to learn more. The lu-Mien farmers identified chemical use and storage as a priority area that they wanted to learn more about. The Nepali-Bhutanese identified the use of manure and compost on the farm and the Iraqi farmers identified farmer health and hygiene. Most of the farming groups stated that they preferred to learn through a group training or on site on a participant's farm. The majority of trainings provided to this group utilized this method so participants felt most comfortable. Survey participants from the Iraqi and Nepali Bhutanese communities identified that they watched television and YouTube as a source of entertainment while fewer lu-Mien farmers identified this as a preferred source of entertainment. Based on these findings, discussions and self-identified preferences by farmers themselves, the topics to be covered in the pilot phase and the teaching method to be used were selected. The results of all three needs and strengths assessments were compiled in a report and shared with project partners as well as farmers by late March, 2019. Convene a community-based project committee Throughout the project period, the IRC collaborated closely with the project committee as well as the farmers themselves. Due to the challenges of gathering all groups together in one location, consultations were conducted separately with each group. This enabled the team to meet each group of farmers where they work and discuss these issues in their native languages using translators. A higher-level project committee comprised of extension agents and technical assistance providers in the region who have expertise in agricultural training and FSMA was also formed and their input and guidance was sought throughout the project. These partners included CAFF, which has expertise in providing food safety trainings, and the UCCE Small Farms Advisor, who has expertise and experience designing and delivering trainings on food safety and GAP to small farmers in the Sacramento region. An in-person meeting was held with this committee in February to discuss initial findings from the needs assessments and discuss appropriate and effective education methods and tools, and IRC regularly updated the committee on the status of the project. As the videos and visual aids were being developed by the design studio, Uptown Studios, multiple drafts were shared with CAFF and UCCE and their input and technical advice was incorporated into revisions made to the script and the form and style of the videos. While the educational materials were being developed, the IRC also met with community representatives from each of the three farming groups involved in the project to screen initial drafts of the curricula and solicit feedback and input on the content and style of the materials. The consultation process used with both the participants themselves and with a committee of technical experts in the agricultural field helped lead to high-quality content Design a pilot outreach and extension module The IRC designed three different pilot outreach and extension modules for this project. The modules were designed primarily between March and June 2019, in close collaboration with project partners UCCE, CAFF, and Uptown Studios (the videography and design studio chosen to replace Digital Green for this project), and community representatives as stated above. As determined from the needs assessments and consultations with the project committee, the three educational modules selected to be created were: Video on Employee Health and Hygiene for Iraqi Farmers in Arabic Video on the use of Manure and Compost on the Farm for Nepali-Bhutanese Farmers in Nepali A set of three visual aids on safe chemical use on the farm for lu-Mien farmers in both lu-Mien and English. As all groups of farmers stated that they preferred to learn in a group setting, the videos and visual aids were designed to be incorporated as part of a longer in-person training while also being able to be used as a stand-alone resource that participants could refer to later for guidance. The videos were made using farmers from each group so that the intended audience could identify with the individuals they were seeing in the videos. Voiceovers in the videos were delivered by native speakers of the languages, and for the visual aids a member of the lu-Mien community translated the content. In addition to the educational material created, a prototype water re-use station was designed whereby the water used to rinse produce can be treated and re-used by farmers. This part of the project was carried out in collaboration with the University of California, Davis and three professors. Students in D-Lab studied the feasibility of the idea and designed an initial prototype during the winter and spring semesters under the guidance of Dr. Kurt Kornbluth. Over the summer, between June and August 2019, the prototype was fully designed and installed on the farm in West Sacramento with support from Dr. Maureen Kinyua, an expert in water treatment. At the same time, the UV disinfection system designed and tested by Dr. Bassam Younis, which contains an innovative device to better treat turbid water, was also incorporated into the design. The prototype along with the UV system was installed and has been tested by the students and professors at UC Davis; however, additional work still needs to be completed to make the design fully functional and practical for everyday use.

Publications