The safety of the produce you grow, as well as the safety of those who grow the produce is always important. University of Missouri (MU) Extension is happy to help produce growers with both of these areas.

Produce safety is important to the buyers of your produce, to ensure that it is meeting market as well regulatory requirements and providing as safe a product as possible. MU Extension can offer a number of different produce safety trainings in your community if you are interested. We can work with you to schedule a time that works for your community. To schedule, please contact Patrick Byers with MU Extension at 417-859-2044 or byerspl@missouri.edu or your local MU Extension personnel.

Contact MU Extension if you are interested in organizing any of the following produce safety trainings:

• FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) grower training. This is an 8-hour training that will provide trainees with a certificate from the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) and will meet FSMA Produce Safety rule training requirements.
• Produce Safety Annual Supervisor training. This is a ~90 minute training that will meet the annual training requirements of the FSMA Produce Safety rule. This training will also provide the latest updates on water quality and other aspects of the produce safety rule, which is useful if you have taken the full FSMA PSA training in the past or if you have not taken the FSMA PSA training yet.
• Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) food safety plan training. This is a 2-hour training that can be done online or in person. The training covers the record-keeping and documentation required to get USDA GAP certified. This training is also useful even if you are not interested in getting GAP certified as the produce safety record keeping presented is a good idea for any grower to have in place.

Some of you may have heard that in December 2021, the US FDA proposed revised FSMA Produce Safety Rule requirements for water used on produce farms. Those requirements have still not been finalized. However, testing the microbial quality of the water that you use both pre-harvest and post-harvest in your produce operation is still a very good practice and produce safety audits will also require microbial testing. MU Extension is continuing to provide free microbial water testing for Missouri produce growers through October 2024. You can get the test kits from your local public health department and can also return the water samples to your local public health department. Please check with your local public health department to ensure that you get the sample there at the right time of day and ideally on a Monday-Wednesday to be sure that the laboratory accepts and tests the sample.

If a buyer is asking that your produce be GAP certified, the University of Missouri Extension has a program where MU can directly pay the auditor up to half the cost of your USDA or Quality Fresh GAPs audits. You will pay the other half of the audit cost to the audit company. At this point, this program will last until August 2024. If you are interested in this, you can just tell your USDA GAPs auditor that you would like to participate in MU Extension's GAPs cost share program. MU Extension also provides a training on the records required for GAP certification. The next training on that topic is scheduled for Feb 29, 2024 from 12:30-2:30 PM (online).

MU Extension can also help answer any other questions that you may have related to produce safety. Please contact Patrick Byers at 417 859 2044 or mail at 800 S. Marshall St, Marshfield, MO 65706 if you have questions related to produce safety.

MU Extension is working with Kansas State University Extension to offer training courses and technical assistance on the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Worker Protection Standard (WPS) Pesticide Safety regulations. WPS requirements are to protect those people working on your farm from exposure to pesticides that could be harmful to worker health. Farmers must comply with the EPA Worker Protection Standard if all three of the following apply:

• You own or manage an agricultural establishment (i.e., farm, orchards, nurseries, greenhouses, etc.), and
• Your work is directly related to producing agricultural plants, and
• WPS-labeled pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, miticides, etc.) have been applied on your establishment within the last 30 days. WPS-labeled pesticides may be restricted-use pesticides or general-use pesticides. Look for the "Agricultural Use Requirements" box on the pesticide label (figure 1).
  
  

  Figure 1 Example of WPS-labeled pesticide product statement.

This training is important so that agricultural employers – including farms, orchards, nurseries, greenhouses and others – know what is expected of them related to pesticide applications and how to train their workers to be safe with pesticides.

The Worker Protection Standard also includes providing information on what and where pesticides are being used, and what must be done to protect workers from exposure. The protections required include relevant Personal Protective Equipment, how to read and understand pesticide labels, signage and clear safety procedures.

For more information on WPS and upcoming workshops contact Cal Jamerson of Kansas State University at 913-850-3452 / agri@ksu.edu. The workshops are available for free due to support by grant from the USDA Extension Risk Management Education program.