Development and Deployment of the GAP-App: A Compliance and Safety Tracking Mobile App for Farmers and Food Hubs

The overall Phase I goal is to design, develop, and prototype the first of its kind GAP-App focused primarily on Group GAP and the FSMA Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption. During this process, SYI and subcontractor NSEVP will work together on converting GAP requirements into an acceptable, digitally accessible medium to be used by farmers and food handlers. The GAP-App will be user friendly and available on mobile, tablet, and desktop platforms. Focus groups will be used to ensure application usability and user compliance. Successful beta testing with NSEVP Group GAP farmers will validate acceptance of the platform for food safety data collection and allow SYI to fully develop other FSMA rule components and GAP standards that will expands its marketability beyond specialty crop farmers (e.g. animals, sprouts).Study Goals include:1 Understanding farmer needs in terms of user interface to input data either through timed entry (ex: individual hand washing records) or through free form notes2 Testing to see how much time is saved in terms of data entry (paper versus electronic)3 Testing to see how easy it is for famers in GroupGAP to collaborate and share app training information4 Testing how easy it is to pull up the types of information needed for an audit on-the-fly (re: time savings, accuracy of data search, accuracy of response data coding)5 Understanding the impact of an electronic data input system on adherence and complianceThe primary technical questions are:1 What aspect of GAP-related paper record keeping consumes the most time, and what type of graphical user interface can reduce that amount of time?2 What type of wireframe will make the app user friendly and make data retrieval easy enough that it will ensure compliance and adoption?