When: Thursday, June 7th

Time: 10:00*am – 3:30pm (General public)
*If you are a part of the Farmers Market Aggregation Project please arrive at 8:30/8:45 and training will begin at 9:00 am

Where: Community Resource Bank, 1605 Heritage Drive, Northfield, MN 55057 and Open Hands Farm

Training begins in the classroom at Community Resource Bank, and then we will move to Open Hands Farm for an on-farm tour and hands-on field day relating to food safety on the farm.

Learn how Good Agricultural Practices can improve the quality and safety of your product and help you access new markets. This training is specifically tailored to small to mid-size fruit and vegetable farms, but any farmer or gardener is welcome to attend. Topics:
- Understanding best practices to improve the safety associated with the growing, harvest, washing of fresh fruits and vegetables
- What is a GAP audit? What is FSMA? How do they apply to me?
- Animals, safe compost/manure use, water and safely washing vegetables, low-cost handwashing stands, water testing, and more
- Practice writing food safety SOPs that are helpful for your farm, your food safety plan, and are required for a GAPs audit if you choose to get one.

Trainers: UMN Extension Educators Annalisa Hultberg, MS and Anne Sawyer, PhD

Cost: Free! Bring your own lunch. All attendees entered to win handwashing stand materials for their farm. All attendees issued a certificate of attendance.

BRING: Your laptop, any farm food safety plan you have, and a map of your location.

AGENDA:
8:30 Registration and Refreshments
9:00 Intro and Overview of Local Orbit Platform*
*for Farmers Market Aggregation Project participants
10:00 Introduction to Produce Safety, FSMA and GAP audits
10:30 Worker Health, Hygiene, and Training and Handwashing
10:45 Agricultural water and water testing
11:00 Break
11:15 Wildlife, Domesticated Animals, and Land Use
11:30 Soil Amendments
11:45 Wash water, postharvest, packsheds and pest control
12:00 Lunch break
12:15 (while we continue to eat) Intro to food safety plans, log sheets and lot codes
12:30 SOP Exercise in small groups – practice writing an SOP
1:00 Final Questions and Evaluations
1:30 Leave for Open Hands Farm
2:00 – 3:30 Tour Open Hands Farm and talk about food safety practices