EXPANDING FOOD SAFETY RESOURCES FOR LOCAL FOOD PRODUCERS IN CALIFORNIA

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1023488
• Grant No.: 2020-70020-32266
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $199,985.00
• Proposal No.: 2020-03849
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2020
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2022
• Grant Year: 2020
• Program Code: [A4182]- Regional FSMA Center

Recipient Organization
COMMUNITY ALLIANCE WITH FAMILY FARMERS FOUNDATION
36355 RUSSELL BLVD
DAVIS,CA 95616

Performing Department
(N/A)

Non Technical Summary
According to 2012 agricultural census data, 22,472 farms in California need to be in compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act's (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule (PSR). Of those, 75 percent are small and medium scale. Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) is a non-profit organization that has been working with family farmers throughout California for over 40 years. Since 2006 we have provided over 135 food safety trainings to over 3,000 farmers, 9 webinars to over 375 farmers, 1-on-1 technical food safety support to over 200 farmers during which we have answered almost 600 questions, four podcast episodes on food safety, and helped over 250 complete farm food safety plans. This proposal seeks to expand our food safety program to small/medium, organic, beginning, and socially disadvantaged farmers by updating resources so that they are aligned with FSMA, providing a cost-share program to help offset the financial burden of water tests, offer outreach and education on any updates or changes to water requirements of FSMA PSR, and a series of case studies where farmers that have completed FSMA Inspections share their lessons learned. To accomplish these objectives we will collaborate with University of California Extension Small Farms Advisors, various locally based agriculture focused non-profits, and our network of farmers. This toolbox of resources, from written documents to cost-share funds, will enable the CAFF Food Safety Program to reach a broader group of farmers to aide them in understanding and getting into compliance with the FSMA PSR.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

100%

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
712	1499	3020	100%

Knowledge Area
712 - Protect Food from Contamination by Pathogenic Microorganisms, Parasites, and Naturally Occurring Toxins;

Subject Of Investigation
1499 - Vegetables, general/other;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;

Keywords

food

safety

Goals / Objectives
This project has the main goal of increasing small and medium scale farmers food safety knowledge and implementation of on-farm food safety best practices, which will reduce food safety risks. To complete that, this project has five main objectives, explained in more detail below. Objectives1. Expand Education Resources:Update existing food safety plan templates, recordkeeping logs, standard operating procedures files so they are aligned with FSMA.2. Organic/FSMA/GAP Audit Chart:Many of CAFF's farmer constituents are organic farmersthat want to understand the difference and similarities between organic certification, FSMA Produce Safety Rule, and USDA Harmonized GAP audits. By making our overview chart explaining the differences and similarities we will address this unique need (three topic comparison).3. Cost-share program:Small/medium scale, socially disadvantaged, organic, and beginning farmers that CAFF works with have expressed direct need for a food safety cost-share program in order to complete their water tests to prepare their farm for FSMA compliance and/or to offset the financial burden of completing a 3rd Party GAP Audit.4. Water Subpart Updates:We will create a farmer-friendly blog post explaining any new changes to the FSMA Subpart E Water section based on the anticipated release by FDA later this year of changes.5. Case studies:We will leverage our partnerships with family farmers across the state, the University of California Extension Small Farms team, locally based farmer serving non-profits, and locally based incubator farm programs to find farms well suited for our case studies so we can share the best practices those farms have figured out with other farms.

Project Methods
Many local non-profit and incubator programs, UC Small Farms Advisors, and small farmers across California have looked to CAFF for over a decade to provide "right-sized" food safety support for their needs. Over the years we have developed strong partnerships with the UC Small Farm Advisors based in Fresno, the Central Coast, and Sacramento Valley. We've collaborated with each of them to provide food safety training to Mien, Hmong, and other small farmers. The University of Santa Cruz sustainable agriculture apprenticeship program has CAFF come in and train each year's cohort of farm apprenticeships on food safety as well as work with university farm staff to refine their on-site farm food safety program. The five CAFF staff that work on food safety are all located in different parts of the state stretching from San Diego county in southern CA to the bay area, Sacramento Valley, Sierra Nevada foothills, and up to Arcata on the far north coast of the state. With staff spread out geographically we have many connections with local organizations and farmers in different parts of the state. It takes significant resources for an organization to have a full or part-time person on-staff that's knowledgeable about on- farm produce food safety. Many local organizations partner with CAFF to fill that need that they cannot fulfill in-house.We plan to have the following project outcomes to report to the Western Regional Center:-New resource: CAFF updated food safety plan templates-Number of downloads of food safety plan template resources-New resource: CAFF Organics vs. FSMA vs. Harmonized GAP chart-Number of downloads of chart and number of charts distributed at trainings and events -Number of farmers awarded cost-share funds-Number awarded that fall into each of these farmer categories: socially disadvantaged farmers, beginning farmers, and organic farmers-Report on changes in revenue related to cost-share funds-Number of views of blog post on updated FSMA water standards-Number of case studies completed-Number of downloads of each case studyWe will track the number of downloads via our website technology. For the cost-share data, we will track that through our data collection with farms that are awarded GAP Audit cost-share grants and that information will be explained in detail in the report.

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:Our project focused on the following farmer audiences: socially disadvantaged farmers, beginning farmers, and organic farmers. We reach farmers in these target audiences by promotions on social media, our e-newsletter, and through word of mouth. Changes/Problems:Our main challenge during this project was not receiving as many food safety cost-share applications than we had expected/budgeted for. We recovered from this through a three pronged approach. First, we partnered with a packinghouse that works with many socially disadvantaged farmers and they passed through food safety water test and 3rd party audit costs to 12 growers that they work with. Those 12 growers had $1,645,360 in total sales to the packinghouse in 2021, so their volume is significant. Additionally, the farms ranged in size of selling just under $5,000 to the packinghouse in a year to slightly over $500,000. In short, they are small farmers. Our second approach we took was using some of the funds to buy portable water testing equipment so we could do water tests for growers in the future. The third step we took was pre-purchasing 128 generic E. coli water tests from a reputable lab in the central valley. In the future we can direct growers to that lab when they need to get water testing done. We feel that these creative responses to the challenge have been successful now and will continue to help farmers into the future. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As mentioned in the section above on what we've accomplished, many of the project activities/products have been dissemeniated through CAFF's website:caff.org. In the accomplishment section above we listed how many views various pages related to this project have had during the project timeline. Additionally, there is a significant amount of word of mouth sharing that happens between CAFF staff working on this project and other organizations and farmers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This project has five main objectives. Information on the progress/completionof each one is provided below: 1.Expand Education Resources: We have completed the process of updating our food safety plan templates in English and Spanish. You can find the English ones here: https://caff.org/food-safety/food-safety-plan-templates/ and you can find the Spanish language templates here: https://caff.org/food-safety-templates-spanish/. Between 9/1/21-8/31/22 the English template webpage was viewed/downloaded 1,423 times. Between 9/1/21-8/31/22 the Spanish template webpage was viewed/downloaded 283 times. 2.Organic/FSMA/GAP Audit Chart: The guide has been finalized and can be found here: https://caff.org/nop-fsma-3rd-party-audit-food-safety-guide/. Between 9/1/21-8/31/22 the guide webpage was viewed/downloaded 32 times. 3.Cost-share program: The first round of applications was accepted from March 1-31st, 2021. We awarded 8 water test grants for a total of $1,159. We awarded one 3rd party audit grant for $750. We received less interest in water cost-share grants than we had anticipated. We ended up getting creative on reaching growers. We partnered with a packinghouse in Fresno, CA that works directly with the growers they source from to complete water and 3rd party audits. The packinghouse completed the water tests on the farms and then submitted the invoices to us. We provided up to $250/farm for monthly water testing that all farms that they source from undergo. We also provided up to $750/farm for 3rd party audit costs. This ended up reaching 16 additional farmers and covering the costs of 48 water tests that totaled $1,645. CAFF was able to cover 11 farm's 3rd party audit costs, for a total of $8,212 in support. We additionally worked with Arizona Extension agents to figure out how to source portable water testing equipment that completes water tests that were previously required by FSMA PSR. We have received the equipment from Idexx and are getting into training. We will be able to complete 400 water tests (with the current supplies we have on hand) for farmers in the future. Lastly, we used the remaining funding we had in this project category to purchase 128 generic E. coli water tests from a reputable lab in the central Valley of California. We can direct growers to that lab to get their test bottle. They drop off their bottle and the lab fees get billed to the CAFF account and the grower doesn't have to deal with any paperwork or payment. 4.Water Subpart Updates: With the new proposed water rule getting released in December 2021 and the comment period thereafter CAFF participated in submitting a comment through the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. We also posted this blog post describing the current state of the FSMA PSR Water section for growers to hopefully get clarity on where things currently stand. The blog can be found here: https://caff.org/fsma-water-updates-june-2022/. 5.The last objective relates to case studies from farmers. We have posted this one from New Native's farm on their FSMA inspection: https://caff.org/fsma-inspection-case-study-new-natives-farm/. We also posted this one from Brisa Ranch on their work navigating food safety during wildfire emergencies: https://caff.org/food-safety-wildfires-case-study-brisa-ranch/. We have one more interview with a CDFA PSR Inspector that will be published by the end of September.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Feiereisel. Organic/FSMA/GAP Audit Chart: The guide has been finalized and can be found here: https://caff.org/nop-fsma-3rd-party-audit-food-safety-guide/

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Our project focuses on the following farmer target audiences: socially disadvantaged farmers, beginning farmers, and organic farmers. Thus far in this project we have reached farmers in our target audience by promotions on social media, our e-newsletter, and through word of mouth. The main project activity through which we've reached our target farmer audience thus far has been through the food safety cost-share funding. To date we have funded five women, five beginning farmers, six Latinx farmers, and seven farmers that identify as organic. Changes/Problems:The one main change we had during this reporting period had to do with the cost-share program. We had intially received approval to fund the Harmonized GAP Audit for the $750 cost-share. We had farmers apply for funding for other types of 3rd party audits so we wrote an appeal letter and had the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Audit and the Primus Standard Audit with the FSMA Addendum added as additional audits approved for reimbursement. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For objective #1, we will post the Spanish versions of the templates on our website in the next month. For objective #2, we will post the final version of this guide on our website within the next two months. For objective #3, we will run another round of the food safety cost-share program from October 2021-on to award many more farmers. For objective #4, we will create a publish a blog post on the updated FDA FSMA PSR water requirements if/when they are released. For objective #5, we will find, interview, and create case studies with farmers this winter and next spring.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have worked hard over the first year of this project to lay a solid foundation for the remainder of the project. For objective #1, we have updated our food safety plan templates so that they are aligned with the Food Safety Modernization Act's Produce Safety Rule. The updated English version templates are on the caff.org website. We will be adding the Spanish versions of the templates in the near future. For objective #2, we have completed drafting the guide, sent it to reviewers, received reviewer feedback, and are currently in the process of finalizing the guide and putting it into design. The final version of the guide will be accessible on our website in the next couple months. For objective #3, we have promoted, reviewed, and awarded the first round of food safety cost-share awardees. We have awarded $1,909 in water test and 3rd party audit test cost-share awards to nine farmers. We will open up the cost-share application for another round of funding this fall/winter. For objective #4 we haven't completed anythign for this yet as FDA has not released any updates on the water section of FSMA PSR. We anticipate that this information will be released in the winter and will do a blog post when that occurs. For objective #5, we haven't started the case studies yet as they were not planned to start until this winter. We look forward to starting those soon.

Publications