The Produce Best Practices Training is a voluntary foodsafety training for produce growers, specifically those that would like to give samples at farmer’s markets, on their farm, or intending to take part in the Farm to School program. According to a study done at the University of Kentucky (Woods, 2010), customers are much more likely to purchase a product if theyhave sampled it.

In the fall of 2017, the Madison County Horticulture Agent and the Family and Consumer Science Agent were trained to be able to teach the Produce Best Practices Training to producers. The following spring, two Produce Best Practices Trainings were held at the Madison County Cooperative Extension Office. Over thirty vegetable producers from four counties attended.

After the trainings, the Horticulture Agent created an email list serve of participants who had attended the training. This has been used to share updates on food safety.

The Horticulture Agent will survey growers in the fall of2018 to see if they offered samples at the markets or benefited in some otherway from the training.