Local Food Safety Collaborative

1 This proposal, Local Food Safety Collaborative (LFSC), is a collaboration between national and local 2 organizations to provide education, outreach, training, technical assistance to small and mid-size farms 3 and businesses, including diversified, sustainable, organic, and identity-preserved agricultural 4 operations; beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers; small-scale processors; value-added farm 5 businesses; and direct and intermediate supply-chain participants (target audience or local producers). 6 7 National Farmers Union Foundation intends to build its approach off the LFSC Needs Assessment Survey 8 and LFSC Needs Assessment Listening Session Reports of local producers conducted during the previous 9 installment of this award, issued in 2016. During this assessment, Cornell University, with NFUF and10 other collaborators, designed a survey to better understand a multitude of factors surrounding food11 safety practices, knowledge, motivations, and barriers among local food producers. Then, using the12 results of this survey, a series of listening sessions were organized to verify and further clarify needs by13 providing a forum for food producers to discuss their food safety knowledge, challenges to14 implementation, and needs for additional resources.1516 With these identified needs in mind, LFSC intends to help the target audience understand where they17 fall within regulatory compliance and connect them with food safety experts to improve their practices.18 In order to maximize the ability to reach growers and processors, LFSC emphasizes the involvement of19 farm organizations in partnership with regulators and academic institutions. Listed collaborators will20 allow the team to utilize a nationwide advocacy and educational network, while teaming with local21 organizations that work with local producers. Key objectives of the proposal include:2223 ? Education ? Develop and deliver a variety of educational opportunities to local producers and that24 meet them where they are.25 ? Outreach ? Outreach to farmers and small-scale processors for increased awareness about food26 safety compliance.27 ? Training ? Develop a national training plan for local producers, including an alternate curriculum.28 ? Technical Assistance - Provide direct technical assistance to local producers on-farm.29 ? Evaluation ? Evaluate the impact of above objectives to identify best practices, challenges, and30 lessons learned.