CLEAN START 2.0: DEVELOPING A FOOD SAFETY COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE IN EASTERN IOWA

Goal A: Expand the Clean Start Food Safety Coaching program with customized food safety coaching, demonstrations, and technical assistance for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers in Eastern Iowa.Objective A1: Provide customized food safety coaching to 8 Eastern Iowa farmers to increase confidence and knowledge of local farmers on food safety through Clean Start 2.0. Participants will develop a food safety plan and receive a $2000 mini-grant to address corrective actions in the food safety plan.Objective A2: As part of the Clean Start 2.0 Food Safety Coaching program, facilitate 8 work share days at participant farms to build relationships between participants and to demonstrate simple food safety best practices such as hand washing, cleaning and sanitizing, personal hygiene and more.Objective A3: Create 5 Clean Start 2.0 self-guided training modules and quizzes for growers to complete on their own time in order to increase food safety technical assistance for farms. These modules will be freely available on Iowa Valley's website.Objective A4: Establish the Food Safety Innovation Center at the Grow: Johnson County farm to serve as a food safety training, testing and demonstration center for Eastern Iowa farms and practitioners. The educational space will be the home for workshops and serve as a demonstration site for the production of educational videos, handouts, and coaching materials.Objective A5: Host 6 food safety workshops at the Food Safety Innovation Center that feature hands-on workshops for farmers demonstrating post-harvest water sanitizers, hand washing station builds, first aid demonstrations and supplies, cleaning and sanitizing procedures and more. Each workshop will include supplies and resources for the participants to take home and implement the skills that were taught during the training.Objective A6: Research, produce and distribute 3 food safety technical resources and reference guides translated into other languages for farmers whose first language is not English.Objective A7: Research, film and distribute 4 food safety videos utilizing the Food Safety Innovation Center to demonstrate several important good agricultural practices and tips with translated captions for farmers whose first language is not English.Objective A8: Research and assemble a curated list of food safety resources from Clean Start and other publicly available resources to create the searchable Clean Start Resource Library for farmers and practitioners with videos, handouts and reference guides.Goal B: Strengthen the Iowa network of food safety professionals and mentors including trainers, auditors and coaches by establishing the Iowa Food Safety Professionals Network.Objective B1: In partnership with North Central FSMA Training Center, establish the Iowa Food Safety Professionals Network to improve collaboration and outreach by hosting 12 virtual meetings of food safety auditors, trainers and coaches that include staff from ISU Extension, North Central FSMA Training Center, Iowa food hubs, Quality Fresh Harmonized GAP Auditors, Produce Safety Alliance Trainers and others.Objective B2: Host 3 continuing education trainings for the Iowa Food Safety Professionals Network at the Food Safety Innovation Center to improve the outreach and technical assistance available for Iowa farmers by building the skills and knowledge of auditors, trainers and coaches through real world training and demonstrations.Objective B3: Hire and train a Bilingual Food Safety Trainer as a Produce Safety Alliance Lead Trainer to improve food safety technical assistance for farmers in Iowa whose first language is not English.