2014 ASHS Annual Conference

Foodborne Illnesses impact 1 in 6 Americans each year (48 million illnesses), 128,000 hospitalized and 3,000 deaths according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  This combined with consumer concerns have created a need among the agricultural community for education on Good Agricultural and Handling Practices.  Since 2000, 3,800 New Jersey growers have received training in food safety with 1,241 completing third party audit trainings.  These trainings have changed growers’ perspective on how crops should be fertilized, irrigated, grown, harvested, packed and handled.

Rutgers Food Safety Program works with growers to develop food safety plans for their farm.  Our objective is to improve food safety at the farm and distribution levels while making the process cost effective for growers.  The authors have used a variety of methods to reach a diversified group of New Jersey fruit and vegetable producers.  A multi-level approach has been developed to train growers including training manuals to help growers develop a food safety plan, farm plan templates, a website with educational materials, monthly news articles and weekly food safety articles in an online newsletter.

Awareness among the agricultural community is the first step in getting buy-in for a food safety program.  This starts with short presentations at grower meetings followed by half day and day-long sessions on specific topics.  Each session is adapted to the size of the grower’s operation.  The training culminates with the grower having the ability to write and carry out their own food safety program. When grower’s food safety plans are completed, one-on-one review and walk-throughs (second party audits) are available to verify compliance of risk assessments and standard operation procedures.  Over 47 farm walk-throughs involving food safety questions and audit preparation have been completed in the last three years.  Growers who took advantage of the consultations have passed their audits.