DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A REMOTE LEARNING PRODUCE FOOD SAFETY CURRICULUM

Our overall goal through thiscommunity outreachproject is to develop an innovative and engaging remote learning produce food safety curriculum that is highly accessible to diverse growers, particularly small and beginning farmers in order to equip them with increased food safety awareness and the skills to adopt proven food safety risk reduction practices. This goal will be accomplished through the following three objectives:1. Develop remote learning modules and expand target audience.The team has previously developed multiple "hands-on" produce food safety curricula. Since rolling out various hands-on curricula over the past several years, it has become apparent that in-person, hands on workshops are not always possible. Recent examples include those discussed above related to inability of stakeholders to dedicate a whole day off the farm, and the current global pandemic of Covid-19. We propose to use our experience, insights, and resources from developing successful hands-on curricula to create a new series of remote learning modules that cater to the needs of small- and medium-size farms and underserved audiences. In order to make this training curriculum widely available across the state and nationally, an online learning platform will be developed to offer learning modules to an expanded audience beyond what is capable of being reached directly on-site. Tools and resources developed will be shared with the four FSMA regional centers and will be linked on the Northeast Center to Advance Food Safety (NECAFS Clearinghouse Portal). This remote learning curriculum track will consist of standalone modules that can be accessed remotely at any time.2. Develop instructor-led workshop webinars and deliver to expanded audience across Florida and the US. We aim to develop additional curriculum through development of "live" instructor-led modules. We will similarly target small farms, beginning farmers, and other underserved small farmers who may experience difficulty traveling to in-person workshops or devoting entire days to off-farm activities. Approximately quarterly, select topics, based on stakeholder input, will be presented during "live" instructor-led workshop webinars. Quarterly instructor-led workshop webinars will focus on timely issues that are important to stakeholders at the moment, as determined by stakeholder input and by considering the types of questions we receive from stakeholders through our normal channels during that time period. An additional instructor-led workshop webinar will be conducted annually targeting farm employees to provide foundational annual food safety training on relevant topics and those required for all employees under the PSR worker training requirements.3. Develop evaluation tools and assess short- and medium-term learning and impact. Evaluation tools will be developed to assess the progression of the project in meeting its short-, and medium-term outcomes. The evaluation tools and approaches will provide meaningful data to guide further implementation and refinement of the project. Short-term evaluations will focus on participant knowledge gain and understanding of produce safety principles. Medium-term evaluations will use follow-up surveys to understand how participants used the benefitted from participating in the modules and whether their participation led to any operational changes in support of food safety risk reduction.