September 2019 - 13

FOOD SAFETY
the safety on their farms and to comply
with U.S. Food and Drug Administration
produce safety regulations.
Produce safety trainings have three
goals: to keep consumers safe and
healthy; to help Georgia's farmers stay
compliant with food safety regulations
to market safe food; and to help protect
the health of Georgia's burgeoning local
food industry.
" Food safety is just good marketing, "
Judy Harrison said. " Even if your product
is not involved in an outbreak, your sales
still can be affected. It only takes one
scare to ruin the market. "
While consumers may associate food
safety issues with dairy or meat products,
fresh vegetables are often the culprit.
Between 1998 and 2008, about 46% of
foodborne illness in the U.S. was caused
by fresh produce. The more people opt
for fresh, unprocessed produce, the
greater the risk of illness when that
produce is not handled correctly, Judy
Harrison said.
To help curb these numbers, the
U.S. Congress passed the Food Safety
Modernization Act, which updated
food safety regulations across several
industries, including production
agriculture and, for the first time, created
nationwide standards for growing,
harvesting and handling produce.
Under the law, farms may be required
to have at least one manager on site who
has undergone produce safety training
certified by the Association of Food and
Drug Officials. If farms are selling small
amounts of fresh produce and other
foods, and if they are selling it directly
to consumers through farmers' markets,
they may be exempt from the rule.
However, even these farms should have
some food safety training to keep their
customers safe.
Celia Barss is the owner of Woodland
Gardens, a small organic farm in Winterville
that participated in one of the UGA
trainings. " The information was really
great, " she said. " The class made it feel less
overwhelming. Sometimes the regulations
you have to meet feel insurmountable, so we
are now doing our best to implement what
we can on our farm. "
A 12-acre organic farm certified by the
USDA, Woodland Gardens is just one
type of operation that UGA Extension's
produce safety training programs were
designed to help. There are about 20,000
farms in Georgia that involve less than
50 acres, according to the 2017 USDA
census of agriculture. Large-scale produce
farming operations can also benefit.
" We have seen examples across the nation
of foodborne illness outbreaks from produce
causing not just illnesses, but deaths. And
we've seen farmers lose their businesses.
No one wants either of those outcomes to
happen from Georgia produce. Our goal
in UGA Extension is to help keep Georgia
farms in business and help keep consumers
safe, " said Judy Harrison.
In Georgia, the 2017 farm gate value
was $1.15 billion for vegetables and $704.8
million for fruits and nuts, according to
the UGA Center for Agribusiness and
Economic Development. VGN
Celia Barrs, the owner of Woodland Gardens in Winterville, Georgia, sorts tomatoes in the packinghouse on the organic farm. Barrs is
one of the hundreds of Georgia farmers who attended produce safety courses held by UGA Extension over the past three years.
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7/23/19 6:07 AM
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September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2019