Expanded Refugee And Immigrant Food Safety Outreach Project in Sacramento

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Sacramento, in partnership with University of California, Davis (UC Davis); Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF); and University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE), proposes the "Expanded Refugee and Immigrant Food Safety Outreach Project in Sacramento". This Community Outreach Project will expand food safety education and training to farmers belonging to marginalized groups in the Sacramento region. This project has both immediate and long-term goals. The immediate goal is to expand access among marginalized farmers to up-to-date, culturally appropriate education and training around Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations and Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). The longer-term goal is to support these farmers in adopting food safety best-practices and ultimately reduce the overall risk of food-borne illness outbreaks originating from their farms. This project will build upon the lessons learned and curricula produced during IRC's pilot FSOP project, and will include a Collaborative Engagement Supplement to continue its close partnership with UC Davis. This partnership will support the evaluation of the curricula's effectiveness and continued testing of the pilot project's water-saving wash station design.The project has four major objectives, all of which contribute to the goal of expanding access among marginalized farmers to up-to-date, culturally appropriate education and training around FSMA regulations and Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs).Objective #1: Three complete sets of food safety training curricula each geared towards a different audience of marginalized farmers developed during year 1 of the project.Objective #2: Three different groups of marginalized farmers increase awareness and understanding of Ag food safety best practices through delivering newly developed curricula; farmers within these groups adopt best practices wherever possible through implementing detailed adoption plans with farmer participants.Objective #3: Nationwide networks have access to IRC-developed curricula for use for their training of farmer groups on food safety topics.Objective #4: The pilot wash station water re-use system on Kuchenu farm site will be monitored for effectiveness and user-friendliness, and modified with any needed improvements; replicable crop wash station water re-use plans will be developed and disseminated for other farmers nationwide to adopt on their farms.