Specialty Crop Programming for Florida's Small Farms and Alternative Enterprises

The Small Farms and Alternative Enterprises Extension Team at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) consists of state and county extension faculty who design and conduct programming for all of Florida’s farmers who request support for enhancing their operation with new, alternative crops or novel methods of production, as well as to meet the emerging needs of the state’s small farm industry. Nearly all of the state’s 44,000 small farm operators utilize direct market channels for the sale of specialty crops.  To maintain consumer confidence and solidify the role small farms have in Florida’s local food system, a coordinated effort of educational programming was needed.  For the past six years, the team has been supported for its specialty crop programming by Florida’s Specialty Crop Block grant program. With approximately $450,000 in grant support to date, the team has focused on three major activities: conducting an annual statewide conference, designing and delivering a farm food safety education program, and implementing standardized evaluation methodology for these programs to capture progress over time. Over the past six years of the annual conference, the small farms team has educated 2,664 unique individuals (nearly 4,000 total attendees) on a variety of topics. The conference planning team has made every effort to include a researcher, a farmer, and an industry representative to collaborate and lead each educational session. Hands-on intensive workshops, farm tours, social networking events and 70–90 allied-industry exhibits a year have contributed to the event’s success. Participants agree the conference is a valuable event; > 90% report they were satisfied/highly satisfied, > 70% report knowledge gain and over 60% intend to or already have adapted a practice learned at the conference. Small farms food safety programming occurs throughout the year and is designed to prepare farmers to pass an independent, third-party audit. Farmers take home an editable farm food safety plan that they can begin to implement immediately. In 2014 alone, 114 specialty crop farm participants attended seven food safety trainings (a total of 52 hours), and each specialty crop farm received a resource toolkit. Attendees were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall quality of the training received (98%), and 99% would recommend this training to other farmers. Key outcomes include increased social capital among small farms industry participants and an increase in the number farmers who are compliant with state and federal food safety standards.