Success StoryProduce Best Practices Program



Produce Best Practices Program

Author: Paul Vijayakumar

Planning Unit: Animal and Food Sciences

Major Program: Local Food Systems

Outcome: Long-Term Outcome

Kentucky GAP program was revamped by a joint effort between KDA and Food Systems Innovation Center. This update was necessary to include the latest information and practices from the new Federal Food Safety Modernization Act, Produce Safety Rule implemented by the FDA in 2016. New training will be offered to growers who offer raw samples at farmers market approved by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and road side stands approved by Kentucky Farm Bureau. The new program is called “Produce Best Practices Training (PBPT).” The biggest change will be removing the existing video from the curriculum and instead adequately preparing agents to deliver in-person trainings to their producers. In 2017-2018 I offered four such district-based agent in-service six-hour train-the-trainer programs, 85 Extension agents from across all program areas passed the post training test and successfully completed the program.