Video Series: Essentials of Food Safety for Farmworkers

We all know that farm employees have many crucial roles on the farm, including carrying out food safety policies and practices. However, their ability to do that effectively, depends heavily on the quality of the training they receive. To meet the growing need for online, easily accessible resources, Robert Hadad and Caitlin Tucker have designed "Essentials of Food Safety for Farmworkers", a 5-part video series that covers many of the required worker training topics set forth by FSMA (the Food Safety Modernization Act), or other 3rd party auditing programs.
Part 1: Creating a Worker Training Program
In Part 1, farm employees and managers will learn about the importance of training farmworkers, topics that farmworkers should be trained on, considerations for training farmworkers, the role of the food safety manager, and resources available to managers to assist in training.
Part 2: Food Safety and Why it Matters
In Part 2, farm employees will learn 5 reasons we should care about food safety, the 3 types of pathogens that cause foodborne illnesses, the 5 routes of contamination on the farm, and potential food safety risks on the farm.
Part 3: Everyday Practices to Prevent Foodborne Illness
In Part 3, farm employees will learn about everyday practices that can reduce the risk of contaminating produce with foodborne pathogen, the steps of proper handwashing, when hands should be washed, the proper way to deal with injuries, and symptoms of foodborne illnesses.
Part 4: Reducing Food Safety Risks on the Farm
In Part 4, employees will learn the difference between cleaning and sanitizing and how to effectively do both, possible risks throughout production areas, wash/pack facilities, storage, and transportation, and steps farmworkers should take if they find a risk they cannot mitigate.
Part 5: Spot the Risk - A Series of Case Studies
In Part 5, employees will be introduced to possible scenarios containing food safety risks, learn why the scenario contains a food safety risk, learn about immediate actions they can take to minimize the risks, and learn about future changes that can be made to prevent the risk from happening again.
Transcript: Part I - Creating a Worker Training Program (pdf; 235KB)
Transcript: Part 2 - Food Safety and Why it Matters (pdf; 370KB)
Transcript: Part 3 - Everyday Practices to Prevent Foodborne Illness (pdf; 315KB)
Transcript: Part 4 - Reducing Food Safety Risks on the Farm (pdf; 461KB)
Transcript: Part 5 - Spot the Risk - A Series of Case Studies (pdf; 371KB)


Upcoming Events
2025 New York State Potato School

February 11 - February 12, 2025
Waterloo, NY
This year's program will feature speakers covering critically important topics like disease management, updates in storage techniques, new varieties, and other production management practices. New for this year will be the Processor Panel where guests will have the chance to interact with some of the major chip processors in the northeast. Your participation will also earn you DEC and CCA points.
Remote Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Training
February 12, 2025
Join Cornell Cooperative Extension of Orange and Oneida Counties, the Cornell Vegetable Program, Harvest NY, and the Eastern NY Horticulture Team on Feb. 12 for a remote Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) training. Good Agricultural Practices is a voluntary food safety audit program requiring minimum standards for the production, handling, packing, and storing of fresh fruits and vegetables, and is required by some buyers. Trainers will cover food safety best management practices related to worker training, preharvest assessments and wildlife management, water testing, postharvest handling, hygienic equipment design and efficient wash-pack setups, how to write a farm food safety plan, and more. The training will follow the USDA GAPs audit checklist so that farms will be prepared for an audit. A NYSDAM GAPs auditor will join us to discuss audit logistics and answer questions from participants. Following the course, we will offer a series of virtual office hours to follow up with course participants to assist them with writing their farm food safety plan, which is mandatory for the GAPs audit. Participants will receive a certificate of course completion after the training.
Food Safety Lunch and Learn Webinar Series
February 11, 2025 : Part One: What's Going on with Food Safety?
NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets FSMA inspectors are expected to step up farm visits this season. Why are they showing up on the farm asking about FSMA? Aren't we exempt? This noontime hour we will discuss the purpose of the farm visits and what produce farmers need to know.
February 18, 2025 : Part Two: What Counts as Food Processing?
In this session, we will discuss what counts as processing and what doesn't. Stories of inspectors coming to farmers markets and auctions telling some growers certain products can't be sold usually without much explanation. We will try to make some sense of things and clear up some misunderstandings so hopefully the upcoming season goes smoothly.
February 25, 2025 : Part Three: Traceability - Benefits for Food Safety and Beyond
Can having a traceback process for your produce (and other farm products) make good business sense regardless of FSMA regulations? We will (try to) make the case for farms to have some sort of traceability mechanism in place.