Source: CAROLINA FARM STEWARDSHIP ASSOCIATION submitted to NRP
DIVERSIFIED FARM FSMA TRAINING INITIATIVE
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1027192
Grant No.
2021-70020-35679
Cumulative Award Amt.
$394,470.00
Proposal No.
2021-05659
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2021
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2025
Grant Year
2021
Program Code
[A4182]- Regional FSMA Center
Recipient Organization
CAROLINA FARM STEWARDSHIP ASSOCIATION
287 EAST STREET STE 421
PITTSBORO,NC 27312
Performing Department
Farm Services
Non Technical Summary
We propose to partner across California, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New Mexico to complete the development and delivery of a PSA-equivalent curriculum for diversified, sustainable, organic, beginning, and socially disadvantaged farmers growing produce for local and regional food markets. These producers are highly likely to be operating farms that are not covered by or qualified exempt from the FSMA Produce Safety Rule (PSR). Among this audience, those that are covered often need significant support to gain an understanding of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), and maybe unaware of the PSR.The project partners, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), and New Mexico Farmers' Marketing Association (NMFMA), combined have the equivalent of over a century of serving the needs of this farm audience and have been leaders among community-based organizations providing GAP, food safety, and FSMA support to these farmers since FSMA was passed. They have worked at the state, regional, and federal levels to develop a variety of successful training programs and support services for these farmers. These community-based organizations have been cooperating with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in creating a PSA-equivalent GAP curriculum targeted to the needs of this audience. The proposed Diversified Farm FSMA Training Initiative continues that collaboration by taking that curriculum and developing a full program for delivery to the target audience, including hosting walk-through trainings, conducting pilot trainings on-farm, creating a Train the Trainer curricula, establishing a review and monitoring process for curriculum maintenance and distribution, and hosting an initial round of trainings.Together, through this proposal for the Diversified Farm FSMA Training Initiative, the project partners will develop and implement a customized food safety education and outreach program for small farms that use conservation-focused, sustainable, and organic practices and distribute their produce in local and regional food markets, especially farms in this category that are operated by beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
71250102000100%
Knowledge Area
712 - Protect Food from Contamination by Pathogenic Microorganisms, Parasites, and Naturally Occurring Toxins;

Subject Of Investigation
5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
2000 - Chemistry;
Goals / Objectives
The overall objective of the Diversified Farm FSMA Training Initiative curriculum is to prepare producers to meet specific third-party standards or regulatory requirements, as they relate to the Produce Safety Rule, in order to be in compliance with the identified market or regulatory standard. We will do this by launching an FDA-approved PSA-equivalent training program nationwide that will include training curriculum for farmers, trainers, and an administration plan for institutions and organizations using the PSA- equivalent training. Specifically, we will:Objective 1: Conduct a walkthrough of the training with the project team, stakeholders of the National Farmers Union's Local Food System Collaborative, subject matter experts, USDA AMS, state regulators, and FDA; and conduct two pilot trainings for farmers. The walkthrough will be the final step in FDA's process for validating the DFFTI curriculum as PSA-equivalent. Farmer participants in the two pilot trainings will be asked to complete pre/post-test questionnaires and a training survey in order to determine the course's effectiveness. The team will then incorporate feedback from participants into the curriculum and then submit it to the FDA for final approval.Objective 2: Develop Train the Trainer curriculum for the DFFTI curriculum that will include both an instructor's guide and a student guide. The curriculum will be submitted to the FDA for review.Objective 3: Conduct one Train the Trainer course for 20 program participants. Program participants will be required to complete an evaluation form at the end of the course in order to determine the course's effectiveness.Objective 4: Partner organizations will conduct a total of six DFFTI curriculum trainings in years two and three in California, New Mexico, North Carolina, and South Carolina for 120 program participants (6 trainings x 20 participants per training), with the partner organization in each state as hosts and logistical coordinators for each training event. Program participants will be required to complete an evaluation form at the end of the course in order to determine the course's effectiveness.Objective 5: Develop an administration plan for institutions and organizations conducting the DFFTI training that will include a review and monitoring process, a plan for issuing course completion documents for participants, and a long-term curricula management plan to ensure it is updated when necessary.Objective 6: Evaluate the curriculum and training courses using a TOP Model approach. Evaluation results will be used to continually improve program implementation.
Project Methods
The Diversified Farm FSMA Training Initiative curriculum will be delivered as part of a continuum of community-based produce safety education programs that together build small farms' food safety competency and readiness for PSR inspections and audits. The curriculum builds on existing programs that introduce operators of small-scale, limited resource, beginning, and organic/sustainable farmers to the positive reasons for embracing a culture of food safety and implementing food safety practices, and that guide farms through the process of food safety risk assessment.

Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:Producers operating farms not covered by or qualfiied exempt from the FSMA Produce Safety Rule (PSR). During this reporting period one pilot training was conducted for 19 participants. Changes/Problems:Following the walkthrough in 2022, the project team revised the curriculum materials based on feedback from the walkthrough and converted the curriculum from a slide presentation format to a workbook format with activities. This process required considerable work, resulting in a six-chapter, 280-page interactive curriculum workbook. Each chapter was submitted to the FDA for a technical accuracy and critical learning objective (CLO) equivalency review. The project team then addressed the FDA's comments and incorporated their edits into the curriculum. The FDA review team declined to review the pre-harvest water content in the water chapter due to the timeline of the release of the final water rule. Now that the water rule has been finalized, we are working to update the pre-harvest water content in the Produce Safety Rule section of that chapter. FDA does not expect to have revised CLOs for the pre-harvest water content until the end of 2024. We will continue to work with the FDA team to update the curriculum once those CLOs are finalized. The revised workbook was used for the first pilot held July 10-11, 2024. The entire curriculum workbook is being edited for clarity and consistency across chapters. This is necessary because the original modules were written by different authors as slides with notes. Significant work was needed to turn this into a farmer-friendly workbook that reads well and can be presented by trainers. Due to the additional steps and time required for revising the curriculum and receiving a final FDA review, we are adjusting the number of PSA-equivalent training (Objective 4) from 8 to 2. All of the other objectives will be completed during the grant extension. This allows us to complete the curriculum review and editing process with the FDA, hold the second pilot training (Objective 1), develop and deliver the train-the-trainer curriculum (Objectives 2 and 3), develop an evaluation plan (Objective 6), and develop and disseminate an administration plan for institutions and organizations conducting PSA- equivalent training (Objective 5). We will not be submitting the train-the-trainer curriculum to the FDA for review (part of Objective 2) as this step is not required for obtaining equivalency to the standard curriculum. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Three CFSA staff and one CAFF staff participated in the pilot held in NC and will be able to teach the training going forward. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Updates about the status of the curriculum were provided at the Southern Center for Produce Safety's two semi-annual meetings (Jan./ July) and at the FSOP Project Directors Virtual Meeting in Sept. 2024. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Update water chapter to include final Produce Safety Rule water rule content. Submit edited curriculum to FDA for final review. Develop Train the Trainer curriculum. Develop TOP model evaluation tools. Conduct the second pilot PSA-equivalent training in California, March 2025. Finalize Train the Trainer curriculum. Conduct two PSA-equivalent trainings (one in California, one in the Carolinas). This was modified in our extension request from 8 to 2, based on hold-ups with the curriculum review process. Conduct one train-the-Trainer pilot in the Carolinas. Analyze PSA-equivalent grower training evaluation results and modify material and approach as needed. Develop and disseminate an administration plan for institutions and organizations conducting PSA- equivalent training.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Modified PSA-equivalent training curriculum based on feedback from the walkthrough training participants. Resubmitted curriculum to FDA for technical accuracy and equivalency review. Edited curriculum based on FDA comments. Conducted the first pilot PSA-equivalent training. July, 10-11, 2024. NCA&T University Farm, Greensboro, NC. 19 participants. Analyzed pilot training evaluation results from the first pilot training and modify material and approach as needed. Worked with the FDA to develop a socialization plan for the curriculum, this included agreeing on language that will be used when describing the FDA-reviewed equivalent curriculum.

Publications


    Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Internal curricular development work withproject partnersCarolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), and New Mexico Farmers' Marketing Association (NMFMA). Changes/Problems:Given the delay from the lengthy curriculum revision and review process, we plan to submit for a one-year no-cost extension. During the extension, we plan to conduct the 6 trainings with farmers (Obj. 4) and finalize the curriculum evaluation plan (Obj. 6). ? What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?No trainings were conducted during this project period. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Progress updates on the curriculum development were shared at The Southern Center for FSMA Training meeting in July 2023 and at the FSOP Directors meeting in May 2023. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we plan to finalize the full curriculum, conduct two pilot training (Obj. 1), develop train-the-trainer materials and conduct one train-the-trainer course (Obj. 3), and develop an administration plan (Obj.5), we will also start planning for the six farmer training (Obj.4) which we plan to hold in Q 4 2024 and Q1 2025.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Following the walkthrough in 2022, the project team revised the curriculum materials and converted the slide format to a workbook format with activities that required considerable work. Each chapter was submitted to the FDA for a technical accuracy and equivalency review. The project team is incorporating the FDA's comments into the curriculum and plans to submit the complete curriculum workbook for final review in early 2024. The project team also worked with the FDA to develop a socialization plan for the curriculum, an FDA-reviewed equivalent curriculum.

    Publications


      Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

      Outputs
      Target Audience:The overall objective of the Diversified Farm FSMA Training Initiative curriculum is to prepare producers to meet specific third- party standards or regulatory requirements, as they relate to the Produce Safety Rule, in order to be in compliance with the identified market or regulatory standard. We will do this by launching an FDA-approved PSA-equivalent training program nationwide that will include training curriculum for farmers, trainers, and an administration plan for institutions and organizations using the PSA- equivalent training. The target audience reached during this reporting period was the project team, stakeholders of the National Farmers Union's Local Food System Collaborative, subject matter experts, USDA AMS, state regulators, and the FDA. This pertains to curriculum developmentin preparation for pilot trainings and evaluation trainings with small diversified farmers. Changes/Problems:Given the delay that has occurred through the lengthy curriculum revision and review process, we plan to submit for a one-year no-cost extension. During the extension, we plan to conduct the 6 trainings with farmers (Obj. 4) and finalize the curriculum evaluation plan (Obj. 6). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?No trainings were conducted in this project period. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Progress updates on the curriculum development were shared at The Southern Center for FSMA Training meeting in July 2023 and at the FSOP Directors meeting in May 2023. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we plan to finalize the full curriculum, conduct two pilot trainings (Obj. 1), develop train-the-trainer materials and conduct one train-the-trainer course (Obj. 3), and develop an administration plan (Obj.5), we will also start planning for the six farmer trainings (Obj.4) which we plan to hold in Q 4 2024 and Q1 2025

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? Following the walkthrough in 2022 the project team revised the curriculum materials and converted the slide format to a workbook format with activities which took a considerable amount of work. Each chapter was submitted to the FDA for a technical accuracy and equivalency review. The project team is currently in the process of incorporating the FDA's comments into the curriculum and plans to submit the complete curriculum workbook for final review in early 2024. The project team also worked with the FDA to develop a socialization plan for the curriculum as an FDA-reviewed equivalent curriculum.

      Publications