Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Iowa food safety program builds on Leopold work

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2012

Many consumers consider locally grown food to be fresh, healthy and – possibly even more important to the farmers who grow it – safe.  

Farmers with all sizes of fruit and vegetable operations are learning more about on-farm food safety practices and the documentation to ensure that what they bring to farmers markets and CSAs is as safe as possible. Thanks to a Leopold Center-funded project that began three years ago, farmers have a variety of options for safety training.

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach is offering a sequential series of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) workshops throughout the state during the 2013 growing season. Level 1 workshops provide an overview of GAPs fundamentals and optional web-based modules about basic food regulations and food microbiology. Participants in Level 2 workshops develop their own On-Farm Food Safety Plan to demonstrate how they use and document GAPs in their operation. Level 3 workshops prepare producers for audits to become GAPs-certified, a level of food safety assurance required by some retailers and for large-scale food distribution.

“Producers are very open to the training,” said Angela Shaw, extension food safety specialist. “The top needs we’re seeing are for producer documentation and traceability, knowing where an item is going or where it came from if there happens to be a foodborne illness.”

Shaw said that new federal standards – expected soon as part of the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act – will change how various types of produce such as melons, berries, apples and tomatoes are handled before they reach the consumer. Although the regulations will not directly affect small growers, the regulations require a plan to prevent and/or eliminate foodborne bacteria from entering the food supply. If a foodborne outbreak occurs with a particular produce item, the entire industry will feel the negative effects, which is why these educational workshops and implementation of GAPs are so important, she added.
 
The Leopold Center project included development of educational materials presented to 147 producers who attended eight workshops throughout the state in 2010 and 2011. Shaw said that what educators learned has helped the team create the current workshop series.

A handful of Iowa farmers have completed all levels of training, which prepares them to become GAP-certified. Various cost-share programs are available to some growers and areas to help pay for a third-party audit.

The On-Farm Food Safety team built on the Leopold project to obtain a USDA Block Specialty grant to begin workshops in October 2012. Details are on the Iowa GAP Center blog, http://blogs.extension.iastate.edu/iowagap

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2012