Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Intermediated and institutional market channels represent opportunities to scale and access new revenue streams for local and regional producers. Despite these new market streams, local farmers are often at a disadvantage because institutional buyers require stringent food safety compliance standards. Cultural differences, language, size/scale, production practices, or access to resources may prevent small-scale, beginning, immigrant, and organic specialty crop farmers from adopting food safety practices, completing audits and certifications, installing required infrastructure, or achieving FSMA compliance. These underserved stakeholders will receive technically and culturally accessible food safety training through New Entry's Community Outreach Project via partnerships with regional produce distributors and schools/institutions. We will expand our food safety curricula in order to onboard new producers to meet institutional procurement standards. We will update food safety trainings, create training videos, support third party certifications, and reevaluate food safety educational resources for diverse specialty crop farms in Massachusetts and New England. New Entry will host FSMA/PSR trainings for up to 50 producers and provide intensive individual technical assistance to 20+ high-risk farmers per year through on-farm visits, mock food safety audits, hands-on training, and connections to resources to implement on-farm food safety plans. New Entry will also incorporate new educational food safety curriculum into current farmer training programs reaching over 200 producers per year and disseminate educational resources widely to farmers and peer organizations across the country. Educational materials will assist over 1,500 small-scale and under-resourced vegetable producers across the United States to develop and implement sustainable on-farm food safety practices.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Through this Community Outreach Project proposal, our goal is to create multiple pathways to FSMA compliance and third-party certification for small and mid-sized specialty crop and organic producers looking to sell to institutions and other intermediated markets.Objective 1: Support at least 25 new and beginning producers per year to complete an 8-hr FSMA Produce Safety Rule grower training testing innovative educational delivery methods. Outcome: At least 50 new and beginning farmers will improve capacity to comply with FSMA by completing an 8-hr Produce Rule Grower Training on the Produce Safety Rule.Objective 2: Implement outreach activities (with translation as needed) to enhance FSMA/PSR understanding and compliance for beginning specialty crop producers across Massachusetts and through our national FIELD Network. Outcome: Implement two webinars/online outreach activities that increase food safety skills and knowledge for at least 30 new and beginning specialty crop farmers who report knowledge gained of food safety requirements, certifications, on-farm prevention, detection, control, and traceability. Share educational approach for food safety training and on-farm technical assistance with other agricultural service providers.Objective 3: Implement direct technical assistance for new and beginning farmers on our incubator farms, on our graduates' farms, and at the New Entry Food Hub. Direct technical assistance activities will include but not be limited to: a) farm site visits to assess compliance and support remediation; b) bookkeeping including invoicing systems for traceability and other communication around food safety during produce delivery windows at the New Entry Food Hub; and c) one-on-one support for creation of individual food safety plans and SOPs. Direct technical assistance will include translation services as required to ensure that socially disadvantaged farmers are not left behind by the Produce Safety Rule. Outcomes: At least 100 hours of FSMA direct 1:1 technical assistance will be provided to specialty crop producers by New Entry staff and consultants resulting in at least 20 new and beginning farmers who improve capacity to comply with FSMA requirements and complete a tiered FSMA Food Safety Plan for their specialty crop operations that addresses operational growth. This will be reported in our Annual Farmer Survey.Objective 4: Educate and support New Entry Food Hub producers on MDAR Commonwealth Quality Program (CQP) requirements and support compliance. Disseminate existing food safety training materials to producers to prepare them for certification and audit visits. Conduct pre-audit visits with producers and host "take and make" trainings with producers to improve access to infrastructure needed to comply with on-farm audits. Provide direct technical assistance for beginning and limited resource farmers participating in the New Entry Food Hub. Outcomes: At least 20 producers will gain detailed knowledge of requirements for MDAR CQP audit program and at least 10 beginning, socially disadvantaged and limited resource farmers who currently market produce through the New Entry Food Hub will participate in an on-farm "mock audit" with a trained food safety consultant to identify producer challenges and shortfalls to incorporate in future training modules. Results from the mock audits will be compiled into a report including farm successes, barriers, and next steps. New curriculum and training modules will be updated.Objective 5: Improve the training capacity of New Entry staff through ongoing FSMA training and professional development and regular communication, reporting, evaluation, and participation in NECAFS Regional Center learning groups for key New Entry staff to increase our organizational capacity to teach the FSMA Produce Rule and Preventative Controls to new and beginning specialty crop producers across Massachusetts. Outcomes: New Entry staff and interns will improve their PSA Trainer skills and competencies and participate in regular regional NECAFS meetings and calls to improve direct technical assistance about FSMA criteria and share educational strategies and producer outcomes. Regular reports will share progress, outcomes, and producer learning, adoption of practices, and behavior change.
Project Methods
To support socially disadvantaged and limited resource producers gaining equitable access to FSMA training opportunities proposed in this grant, translation services will be offered for farmers who do not speak English as a first language. Translation services support direct technical assistance during farm visits, office visits, courses, and workshops, as well as Food Hub technical assistance for farmers. UMass is offering FSMA trainings in Spanish and New Entry has bilingual staff who speak Spanish to support follow up.Outreach and producer training sessions will be led by New Entry Farmer Training Team staff including PSA FSMA PSR trained staff. The farmer training team staff and consultant will provide one-on-one FSMA food safety technical assistance throughout the year for farmers [classroom, on-farm]. Our Beginning Farmer Educator is responsible for new Curriculum Development and, in collaboration with project leadership and student interns, will develop new training curriculum and develop short food safety training videos [to capture farm-based food safety and SOP approaches] to meet third-party certifications and produce distributor vendor requirements. We will conduct additional mock food safety audits with producers to identify additional training needs and we will incorporate lessons learned during 2022/2023 audits.New Entry Food Hub Team will provide FSMA food safety technical assistance through the New Entry Food Hub to farmers selling to the Food Hub. The staff will offer workshops, trainings, and resource development. Our Operations Administrator will support outreach and promotional materials. New Entry seeks to revise and enhance existing food safety educational materials and curriculum to incorporate the FSMA Produce Rules for exempt and qualified exempt producers and incorporate specific MDAR CQP compliance as the new FSMA rules are continually interpreted. Our pipeline of beginning farmer training programs means that we are continually bringing in new producers who required basic level training as well as continue to provide ongoing support and technical assistance to establishing and historically underserved farmers. We continue to incorporate feedback from workshop evaluations and direct field observations. The Food Hub's CQP certification and food safety plan will be updated annually.