Source: COMMUNITY ALLIANCE WITH FAMILY FARMERS FOUNDATION submitted to NRP
RELATIONSHIP DRIVEN FOOD SAFETY TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO CALIFORNIA SMALL FARMERS
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1028718
Grant No.
2022-70020-37566
Cumulative Award Amt.
$205,000.00
Proposal No.
2022-01714
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2022
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2025
Grant Year
2022
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
Providing food safety technical assistance to small farmers in California is going to be an ongoing task for years to come. There are thousands of growers and so few people doing the work in the state. This proposal provides a comprehensive approach to effectively serving BIPOC and beginning farmers needs through relationship building (obj. 1), providing office hours for 1-on-1 assistance (obj. 2), continuing to offer a robust Partner Farm Food Safety Program (obj. 3), and creating new hands-on lessons that we can share with our growers and beyond to other networks across the country.
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
71214993020100%
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;
Goals / Objectives
Goals & Objectives #1 Strengthen relationships with BIPOC Farmers: 1)Attend four annual regional gatherings for two consecutive years and build relationships with BIPOC growers that are part of CAFF's farmer aggregation program in various parts of the state 2) Write related report.#2 Provide food safety office hours: 1)CAFF's marketing team will be conducting marketing field days and meetings with different growers around the state from 2022-2024, focused in the California Central Coast area2)Provide 1-on-1 food safety technical assistance to growers. It is likely that a large percentage of the growers that attend these field days will be BIPOC. #3 Offer Food Safety Partner Farm Program: CAFF has offered our Food Safety Partner Farm Program since 2018. This program provides growers with an in-depth collaboration over a few month period. This program originated from a 2018 FSOP proposal and out of the feedback we had received from BIPOC and beginning growers at the time, that one or two stand alone workshops was not very helpful for them. They wanted 1-on-1, in-depth, food safety guidance over a period of time. For the Food Safety Partner Farm program, growers determine their food safety goals at the start of the partnership and then we guide them through small steps that get them to the end goal (e.g. creating/updating a food safety plan and following it, being prepared for FSMA Inspections, etc). At the end of the partnership we host a field day with the grower to share with other local growers changes they've made and tips.#4 Create hands-on activities for the national alternative food safety curriculum: CAFF is a part of the national project team developing an alternative food safety training program that will be approved by FDA as an eligible training for farmers to take to meet the FSMA training requirement, referenced in 112.22(c) of the regulation. We have been involved in this project for years because we have seen first-hand that small-scale, socially disadvantaged, and beginning farmers need more hands-on training and material presented in short segments. We have completed many rounds of curriculum review by FDA and are anticipating getting approval to do a curriculum walk through in 2022. CAFF created the animal and sanitation modules for that curriculum. Through this FSOP project we would like to create optional hands-on add-on activities for those modules. The hands-on activities would include 1) farm sanitizing kit in a box (demonstrate with the supplies in the box how farmers can clean and sanitize postharvest areas), 2) farm tough first aid kit assembling and contents explanation, and 3) using flags to mark buffer zones around animal contamination in the field. These activities could be used outside of the official course and by other trainers around the country
Project Methods
This project is different in that it focuses more on relationship building than traditional scientific research. Below we have expanded on methods that will be taken for each objective.Methods for Objective 1: CAFF's food safety team will collaborate with CAFF's Farm to Market team to help organize and attend the four annual regional gatherings with BIPOC growers. The food safety team will keep track of any relationships made with farmers interested in food safety technical assistance. Whenever possible, we will acquire farmers cell phone and/or email addresses to follow-up with them after the gatherings to see if we can provide additional support. Also, at each of the gatherings our food safety staff will be taking notes on qualitiative feedback BIPOC farmers give about ways to best support them with food safety. The summation of this qualitiative research will be compiled into a report by the end of the grant.Methods of Objective 2: We will keep track of number of growers helped at each field day, number of questions answered, and any farmer contact information acquired. We will also track if any technical assistance is provided after meeting initially at the event or office hours.Methods of Objective 3: Growers that participate in our Partner Farm Program are given pre and post evaluations on their food safety knowledge and practices. These are often completed on paper and the answers are compared at the end of the partnership to see evaluate if the collaboration resulted in any changes. Depending on the timing of completion of working with growers, we will follow-up with them 3-6+ months later to see if they have changed any additional practices after their experience working with CAFF.Methods of Objective 4: As we develop the different hands-on activites we will share drafts of them with the group of people we're working on the alternative curriculum development with. They are food safety experts, especially in understanding how to work best with small farmers. We will solicit their feedback before finializing the activities. Additionally, as possible, we will pilot test the activities with a small group of growers to get their feedback on each activity before finalizing them.

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

Outputs
Target Audience:The main focus and target audience during this reporting period was farmers in our Food Safety Partner Farm Program (Objective 3). CAFF's Farmer Services Central Valley Regional Lead had meetings with our two values-driven food hubs (Coke Farms, Fresno BIPOC Produce) that we're partnering with in this grant. The second round of the Food Safety Partner Farm Program in this grant started in the fall of 2023 with the onboarding of three new farmers (that are socially disadvantaged and Spanish speaking) related to our partnership with Coke Farm. Additionally, we were in conversion with colleagues at UC Extension Small Farms team to onboard a lu Mien grower in the Sacramento area. That grower ended up not needing our support. Our partnership with Fresno BIPOC Produce took a pivot during the early part of 2024. The leader of Fresno BIPOC Produce expressed to CAFF that they would rather try to get the food hub growers GroupGAP audited vs. CAFF working with two of their 15 growers (who are mainly Hmong) on food safety. We have been responsive to this feedback and have spent a significant amount of time from March 2024 onwards helping research what getting Fresno BIPOC Produce GroupGAP Audited would entail and figuring out how we can adjust our project to support them. Changes/Problems:We realized we were going to need a project timeline extension earlier in 2024 and already went through the no-cost extension process and have that approved. Given that is complete, we do not anticipate any other changes or problems at this time. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project was not focused on professional development for staff. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We uploaded all the new resources to the national Food Safety Clearinghouse (https://foodsafetyclearinghouse.org/) as well as sharing them with the Western Regional Center during our monthly meetings. We plan to do a full evaluation of how many downloads they've had and any feedback we've collected on them in our final report. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period we plan to do the following to accomplish the remaining goals that have not be completed thus far: Objective 1: Attend additional farmer gatherings, collect more farmer feedback, survey CAFF staff that work with farmers on technical assistance, compile findings, and write up a written document analyzing it all. Objective 2: We will continue to provide weekly office hours to provide a routine time and space for farmers to reach out to us with food safety questions. Objective 3: We plan to finalize the adaptions to our partnership with Fresno BIPOC Produce and implement whatever changes are determined. Additionally, we will host a field day with the three central coast growers that completed their Partner Farm Programs in 2024. We will complete the final "open" Partner Farm Program slot for one-on-one farmer technical assistance. Objective 4: Complete.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? For objective one, we attended three additional regional gathering during this reporting period. We attended a Dia des los Muertos event on 11/1/23, the 2024 CA Small Farm Conference Regional Gathering in the Central Valley on 2/28/24, and a Farm to School event with farmers on 8/18/24. At all events we interacted with farmers in our target audience for this project and learned more about their food safety needs. For objective two, we have hosted weekly farmer service office hours during the whole duration of this reporting period. We always have at least one CAFF staff member on that is bilingual in English and Spanish so we are able to provide technical support to Spanish speaking farmers that call in or join. For objective three, we made significant progress on this objective during this reporting period. We onboarded, provided direct technical support to three farmers on the central coast of California, and helped two of them pass USDA GAP Audits. We will have more positive outcomes to share on this part of the partner farm work during our final report. We have been in conversation with our partner at Fresno BIPOC Produce to adapt their partnership with us for the last cohort of the Partner Farm Program with them. It no longer made sense for us to help two of their 15 growers with food safety technical assistance as they all wanted to participate in a GroupGAP food safety audit with a consultant. We are working to coordinate complementary technical assistance that we can provide to them in conjunction with the food safety audit prep they are doing separately. For objective four, we completed making a number of different farmer directed resources and food safety technical assistance provider direct resources (lesson plans). More details about them was uploaded to the "other products" part of the online reporting system. ?

Publications


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

    Outputs
    Target Audience:The main focus and target audience during this reporting period was farmers in our Food Safety Partner Farm Program (Objective 3). CAFF's Farmer Services Program Manager had meetings with our two values-driven food hubs (Coke Farms, Fresno BIPOC Produce)that we're partnering with in this grant. During these preliminary meetings we have learned of farmers that work with these food hubs that want to participate in the partner farm program. Onboarding meetings at these farms happened in January 2023. Additionally, a tribe in northern California has reached out to us to also join the partner farm program. We successfully completed the process with tribal council and USDA NIFA FSOP to be able to work with the tribe and meet NIFA FSOP requirements.These farmers composed cohort one of our Partner Farm Program. They were helped extensively from January-May 2023. All of the farmers that participated in cohort one were either socially disadvantaged farmers and/or beginning farmers. Changes/Problems:During this reporting period, we've had a few problems occur. 1) There haven't been as many of the regional gatherings as anticipated, which relates to objective one. We were still able to go to one during this reporting period. We had aimed to attend eight regional gatherings and it's like that it will be closer to four. 2) As mentioned earlier in this report, objective four has been impacted by shifting timelines in another project. We hope that FDA will provide their input by February 2024. At that point we will finalize our activities. We are not entirely held up by FDA and have still proceeded with preparing one activity on "sanitizer in a box." 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?Objective 1: We plan to continue to attend multiple regional gatherings, talk to farmers, learn more about their experiences (including with food safety), and continue to plan/figure out when future gatherings are happening so we can make sure to attend those. We will write the key takeaways document. Obejctive 2: We will provide one-on-one technical assistance opportunities at all of the regional gathering events we attend. Objective 3: The second (and last) cohort of farmers for the Partner Farm Program will be onboarded in December-January 2024. They will be guided through the process in January-April 2024. Around April 2024 there will be field days where growers can learn from each other about food safety practices they've implemented on their farms. There will also be communication with the two food hubs were partnering with on the project. Objective 4: In January-June 2024, we will spend time finalizing hands-on activities for the farmer training course.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: During this reporting period we attended one gatheirng in February 2023 in the San Joaquin Valley. It was the regional gathering for the Fresno area for the CA Small Farm Conference. Objective 2: At regional gatherings we will be available to answer questions for growers. Objective 3: During this reporting period six farmers were onboarded for our Food Safety Partner Farm Program. Extensive support was provided to each of them in-person, via phone, and via email during January-May 2023. In May 2023, two of the farmers in CAFF's program had third party food safety audits and they both passed! The other farmers that participated in the program all worked on improving their food safety practices and developing food safety plans. A collaborative field day between three of the farmers was held in June 2023. There were 25 farmers there and over 20 questions were answered. The event was bilingual, in both English and Spanish. One of the farm's we were working with was a tribe and due to their tribal policies, we were unable to host a field day. CAFF knew about that in advance and worked with NIFA FSOP to determine that was okay. Near the end of this reporting period we started to work on recruiting farmers for the second (of two) cohorts of farmers to go through the program. Objective 4: This objective is not planned to be worked on until 2023 and it has been somewhat stalled due to waiting for feedback from the Food and Drug Administration. A separate project is aiming to have a finalized and approved curriculum from FDA for training farmers about food safety. As of writing this report we are not sure when we will hear back from FDA. We have moved forward somewhat in that we have begun the planning stages of creating one hands-on activity, "sanitizer in a box," that will help growers understand how to use sanitizers properly on their equipment. We aim to finish this objective during the last part of the project timeline.

    Publications