Food Protection Trends - January/February 2023 - 20

TABLE 2. Most crucial and actionable needs identified through dot voting by meeting attendees
Need
Capital
Knowledge
Mindset
Time
Training
audit. However, Lichtenberg and Tselepidakis Page (18)
found little difference in produce safety practices of growers
in the same region based on marketing channel. Bihn et al.
(7) found that practices and needs may differ depending
on the distribution distance, defining local growers as those
who sell their produce within 275 miles (443 km) of their
operation. However, Schmit et al. (32) asked growers for
their top three reasons for implementing food safety practices
and found that regardless of market the leading reason was a
" personal commitment to produce a safer product. "
CONCLUSIONS
There is an essential need to tailor outreach and education
(both content and delivery) to the specific needs of produce
growers and to consider the various ways in which those
needs can differ among specific groups of growers and how
those needs are influenced by external factors. Regardless
of the delivery method, educational personnel must view
the produce safety needs of their grower audience through
a specific and contextual lens. Produce growers want
information that comes from credible and experienced
sources, and educators who can foster confidence by
understanding the outside factors influencing the needs of
their target audience and tailor programming to address
those specific needs will have greater success in changing
behaviors.
The key answer for educators looking for the best produce
safety educational approach and content is that it depends on
many factors. Rather than presenting a singular approach or
set of resources, this review was designed to provide context
and a framework for tailoring educational initiatives for specific
audiences and individual growers. The process used for
review of our findings helps to illustrate this benefit.
The findings of this semisystematic literature review were
presented and discussed at the NECAFS Annual Conference
and Meeting in Philadelphia, PA on 12 February 2020. At
this meeting with >75 produce safety educators and regulators,
the findings of this review were described, discussed,
and verified. The most crucial and actionable needs were
identified through participant voting. The semisystematic lit20
Food
Protection Trends January/February
Dot voting tally (most crucial)
8
16
4
18
Dot voting tally (most actionable)
9
20
1
13
erature review provided a shared understanding and foundation
for exploratory and normalizing action among the group.
The group spent >1 h engaged in a facilitated discussion
establishing shared language by responding to the facilitator's
open-ended questions with personal knowledge and perspectives,
and finally built consensus around the findings of this
semisystematic literature review. By the conclusion of the
discussion, the participants had gained an understanding of
other perspectives and experiences and formed a more comprehensive
understanding of the needs and influencing factors
presented. The group unanimously verified the findings of the
literature review while individually garnering a more contextualized
understanding of the needs as informed through discussion
with their regional partners. The participants were able
to ground truth the findings, recognize their own experiences
in the summary, and work on extending the findings to both
collective and individual action.
The group then identified, through a voting process, the
most crucial needs of growers based on the collective experience
of the group of mostly educators and researchers (Table
2). The group then voted again and identified the needs of
growers that were believed to be most actionable or most
achievable, given current resources (Table 2).
The February 2020 exercise verified the findings of our
literature review and confirmed that the results paralleled
discussions among regional produce safety educational
personnel who serve produce growers. The results of the
voting highlight the areas seen as most crucial and actionable
by these educational personnel and emphasize particularly
salient needs of small- and medium-sized produce growers
that need immediate attention. Educational personnel
identified training, knowledge, and capital as the most
pressing needs of the growers they serve. The group felt
that the most actionable items to address with educational
programming are mindset shifts, training, and knowledge.
Both the training and knowledge needs were identified
as crucial and actionable. Therefore, educational personnel
should prioritize development of educational materials in these
areas and apply the information from this semi-systematic
review when developing tools or trainings for small- and

Food Protection Trends - January/February 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - January/February 2023