Christopher Gunter

Our goal is to equip growers with knowledge to successfully implement water treatment systems on their farms. Produce growers are continually evaluating new practices to mitigate food safety risks. Our team has long-standing relationships with the produce growing community as extension specialists. Several stakeholders have been considering agricultural water treatment to achieve market and regulatory requirements. This has primarily been driven by finalization of FSMA’s Produce Safety Rule combined with continued multi-state outbreaks where irrigation water was the likely source of contamination. Growers understand that surface water can become contaminated with foodborne pathogens and do not want to rely upon water tests and or die-off calculations to ensure the safety of their product. Currently, there is a void of a national training curriculum to educate growers about water treatment including applicable technologies for different farm operations, and subsequent monitoring, verification and validation activities to assure the effectiveness of the water treatment system. This project will capitalize on our team’s prior work through a previously funded FSOP which developed a curriculum for achieving these learning objectives. Specifically, this project seeks to: Provide expert review of the four-part agricultural water treatment curriculum Share the curriculum with growers and trainers across the U.S.; expanding the team to Arizona, Georgia and Washington Evaluate educational outcomes of agricultural water treatment programs delivered to produce growers These efforts will allow growers, regardless of location, size or commodities grown, to understand, develop, implement, and document an effective agricultural water treatment system within their operation.

This curriculum, Bridging the GAPS – Approaches for treating water on-farm, is a four-module curriculum designed for a producer audience. This curriculum has been piloted on a limited basis to make initial improvements to improve its effectiveness. This curriculum is ready for a broader implementation. Being part of the current New Technologies for Agricultural Extension federal grant will bring the additional resources of the NTAE team to work alongside the Bridging the GAPS team to expand its scope and refine its effectiveness to impact the safety of the national food supply, particularly irrigated produce. The associated eXtension Fellow and action team will develop documentation to create an eFieldbook to support the curriculum and and possibly seek expansion opportunities through assisted market research.

To provide fresh, healthy and safe produce to consumers, we need to find effective and efficient practices that will allow us to continue farming with limited resources and land availability. Sustainable farming practices have, at their core, an integration of crops and livestock, recycling of nutrients and the wellbeing of humans and the environment. These farming practices increase crop productivity and environmental stewardship, though knowledge-gaps exist specific to the presence and/or removal of riparian buffer zones (RBZ) between animal production areas (APA) and produce fields and the potential relationship for pathogen transfer. This proposal will evaluate the effectiveness in reducing or eliminating movement of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and Salmonella from APAs to adjacent produce fields by establishing a fast growing and cost effective RBZ between these areas within a 1-2 year growing season. Our proposal is unique and based on data collected from previous CPS and USDA funded projects. Our proposed study will: 1- determine the risks associated with the presence of RBZ as barriers and/or sources of pathogen transmission between APA and produce fields, 2- determine whether pathogen movement into produce fields increases with removal of RBZ and 3- determine if the proposed strategy is a tangible solution for growers facing these co-management practices.

We will be conducting vegetable variety trials.

The purpose of the Sub Award is to prepare a series of educational and training MODULES on Recall for use in training Produce Farm Inspectors. These modules are to be part of the FOUNDATION’s outreach effort to produce webinars based on the FOUNDATION’s Standardized Approach to Produce Farm Inspections document. Funding for the project is provided by FDA to the FOUNDATION through their Cooperative Agreement titled Developing a Coordinated National Produce Safety Program. Work will be conducted in conjunction with Maria Topliff, eLearning Instructional Designer and CEO/Founder of Reach You Education Consulting and eLearning Design LLC.

Services Provided During the term of this Agreement, the Contractor shall provide the Client with services (the “Services”). The precise scope and extent of Services shall be determined by mutual agreement of the Parties as set forth more fully in Appendix A (“Plan of Work”) but Contractor will focus on the following activities: Scope of Work Chris Gunter working under the direction of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Foundation (Foundation), will complete the following Scope of Work, under the authority of United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cooperative agreement # 5U01FD005334-05 Agreement deliverables include the delivery of four (4) On-Farm Readiness Reviews (OFRR) training for a total amount of $12,000 in 2018-2019.

The purpose of the Sub Award is to prepare a series of educational and training MODULES (described below) for use in training Produce Farm Inspectors. These modules are to be part of the FOUNDATION’s outreach effort to produce webinars based on the FOUNDATION’s Standardized Approach to Produce Farm Inspections document. Funding for the project is provided by FDA to the FOUNDATION through their Cooperative Agreement titled Developing a Coordinated National Produce Safety Program. Work will be conducted in conjunction with Maria Topliff, eLearning Instructional Designer and CEO/Founder of Reach You Education Consulting and eLearning Design LLC.

The purpose of the Sub Award is to prepare a series of educational and training MODULES (described below) for use in training Produce Farm Inspectors. These modules are to be part of the FOUNDATION’s outreach effort to produce webinars based on the FOUNDATION’s Standardized Approach to Produce Farm Inspections document. Funding for the project is provided by FDA to the FOUNDATION through their Cooperative Agreement titled Developing a Coordinated National Produce Safety Program.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) (Sub-recipient) working under the direction of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Foundation (FOUNDATION) (Pass-Through Entity), will use reasonable best efforts to participate in the effort as described in the following Scope of Work, under the authority of the United States Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) cooperative agreement #5U01FD005334-5.

There is a strong need in the fresh produce production community to gain a better understanding of water remediation to be in compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act. Producers of covered commodities need help evaluating mitigation steps for irrigation water and extension team on this proposal has expertise, as specialists that work with growers in their states and region. Growers within the Southeast and throughout the United States rely heavily on surface water in some areas. Our group has demonstrated that pathogens can many times be present in these surface water sources while indicator organisms (E. coli) are at proper within acceptable levels. This knowledge of pathogen occurrence in these sources as well as the practicality necessity that growers must irrigate their crops and apply protective sprays in a timely fashion have led many of us to begin having conversations with our growers about the benefits of applying a water treatment step such as chlorine or UV-light systems. While the growers understand the risks and benefits of these systems, they are still cautious due to the fact that they do not feel informed about what system may work best for their operation, factors to consider during installation, methods that should be used to demonstrate the use and to verify that the system is working effectively, and operating considerations. Our team will help growers in evaluating the safety of irrigation water, determining effectiveness of water treatment systems when applied to surface water, and extending this knowledge to our clients. Each member of this team has an extension appointment and has been engaged with growers in their states for numerous years. These long-standing relationships with stakeholders haves provided a timely insight and frank dialogue as to the questions growers are asking themselves when trying to implement proactive food safety approaches within their operations. Given these relationships, we are well-positioned to continue engaging growers so that they can provide input to guide our approach and help in shaping any training tools and fact-sheets that are produced from this project.