Agenda for WC #2 – June 21, 4 PM

Conference Call

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Welcome

Betsy Bihn introduced the chairs of the working group and turned the meeting over for chairs to lead.

Attendees: * Please email if you attended and are not listed.

Becker, Anastasia
Bihn, Betsy
Brown, Reggie
Danyluk, Michelle
Ducharme, Diane T.
Gombas, David
Haskins, Cynthia
Hurst, William C.
Kiger, Luana
Killinger, Karen
Kline, Wesley L.
Laborde, Luke F.
Lanini, Sharan A.
Maynard, Liz
Nelsen, Joel
Pivarnik, Lori
Reeves, Brian N.
Runsten, David
Rushing, Jim
Salas Gutierrez, Sonia E.
Schneider, Keith
Simmons, Chip
Smith, Michelle A.
Sullivan, Bradley W.
Swiger, Joshua
Gretchen Wall

Introductions

Short biographies of co-chairs sent with conference call announcement. Contact information of Co-Chairs is:

·  Diane Ducharme, 704-250-5402

·  Brian Reeves,

Review of Responsibilities of the Working Committees Goals

Each committee is tasked with identifying for small scale farmers: (What are the Risks and what are the Challenges)

a.  On-farm challenges that impact understanding and the ability of farmers and packers to implement food safety best practices.

b.  Currently available educational materials and/or documents that effectively increase stakeholder understanding and assist them in implementing food safety best practices.

c.  Where educational and outreach materials are lacking so resources can be allocated for their development and inclusion in the PSA training curriculum.

d.  Current science based practices, for inclusion in the PSA training curriculum, that if implemented reduce on-farm and packing house food safety risks associated with the production and handling of fresh fruits and vegetables

Review of Working Committee #2 Topics

There are nine working committees with various topics to review. Working Committee #2 is tasked with review of:

2.1. Worker Health and Hygiene

2.1.1. Enforcing compliance: Negative versus Positive Reinforcement

2.2. Sanitation and Ground Maintenance

2.3. Toilet and hand washing facilities

2.4. Produce Safety Plan

2.4.1. Development

2.4.2. Implementation

2.5. Recordkeeping

2.5.1. Requirements

2.5.2. Practical steps for implementation

2.6. Traceability & Recall

Timelines

As with any new venture, having an idea of when deliverables are expected is necessary for planning purposes. The intent of this process is to have a working draft of the curriculum by December 2011, with focus groups being targeted during the winter of 2011-2012 (“conference time”). This means that our working group should be working towards the beginning of November as a target date for providing as complete of a package of information as we can provide. A question was raised as to the urgency of this process. Betsy explained that the way the cooperative agreement was written is to support a 3 year project that is tasked with education of growers prior to release of rule and stressed that this is a process and thus December is not a static milestone. While this committees is working through the topics assigned (see above), we will be providing feedback throughout the process through the co-chairs involvement in the Steering Committees. The Steering Committees will be made up of each of the Working committees co-chairs and can provide some congruency between working committee topic overlap.

Given our targeted date for the beginning of November, the group discussed that conference calls (at least at the beginning) should be ~every 3 weeks between 2 and 3 PM on Tuesdays. Additional meeting times and dates may need to be schedules along with subcommittee formations. The next meeting is July 12 and a doodle will be sent out after Orlando’s meeting (June 28-29, 2011) to arrange for best times and next date for the group. In order to take advantage of our first face to face meeting (only?), committee members are encouraged to introduce yourselves while in Orlando to other committee members to put faces to names. Betsy mentioned trying to provide different color stickers on conference name tags for working committees’ members to self-identify. Three week meeting dates include: July 12, August 2, August 23, September 13, October 4, and October 25.

Other issues

1.  Sub-committees - The option of initiating subcommittees once this working committee gets up and going to address our goals.

2.  Communication methods – Discussions centered on the need to have a common area that would be accessible to all committee members to store the existing documents for subject matter. Betsy & Gretchen will investigate a common area to store documents – documents should be password protection. Possible options to look into include: dropbox, Website – blog, Share Point- Windows Doc, Google Docs, options that would be viable from the LGMA.

Priority list

·  Low hanging fruit or high controversial topics

·  Procedure on evaluating issues

o  Gather data

o  Share

o  Use con call to discuss

Subject: Worker Health and Hygiene. - Enforcing compliance: Negative versus Positive Reinforcement

1. Use Harmonization Standards as outline to guide us through the possible topic areas. http://www.unitedfresh.org/newsviews/gap_harmonization scroll down to draft Harmonized Standards – and the Field Operations and Harvesting. Or more directly at http://www.unitedfresh.org/assets/GAPs2010/Harmonized_Standard-pre-farm_gate_111010.pdf

2. Challenges will be with

·  Size of operations

·  Commodities

·  Type of equipment – mechanical harvesting vs. hand harvesting

·  Access to trainers/training for workers (answer is videos)

·  Cultural barriers – ethnicity and food safety culture

·  Flexible training materials not standardized

·  Follow through from management (follow by example)

·  Language

·  Labor turnover during the season

·  Availability of audio video resources for trainings

·  Educational level of audience

·  Literacy

·  Electricity

·  Internet access

·  Multi-media – not just PPT

·  Access to materials

·  Knowledge of available resources

3. Existing Materials available

·  Trevor Suslow

·  Cornell

·  WPS

·  Posters

·  Availability of audio video resources

·  Betsy’s catalog of resources will be placed in the PSA proceedings

·  Need to investigate other resources

Action Items (between now and next meeting):

·  Review the Harmonized standards and be looking at other resources that you can send to to compile for the committee to view for next meeting.

·  Meeting fellow committee members in Orlando!

Topics for next meeting – continue discussion on Worker Health and Hygiene.

Next Meeting Dates:

·  July 12 – TBA (determined through Doodle)

·  August 2 - TBA (determined through Doodle)

·  August 23 - TBA (determined through Doodle)

·  Sept 13 - TBA (determined through Doodle)

·  October 4 - TBA (determined through Doodle)

·  October 25 - TBA (determined through Doodle)

Respectfully submitted by D. Ducharme 6/21/11