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Training H-2A Workers
29 Plays4 years ago
This month's podcast features Eligio Larraga with the Michigan Farm Bureau and Jordan DeVries, a Michigan Produce Safety Technician. In this episode, Eligio and Jordan sit down and discuss produce safety training for H-2A workers.
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Agri-Food Safety Produce Bites podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, my name is Alejo Larraga and I am the labor and sales and field representative for Great Lakes Ag Labor Services. Great Lakes Ag Labor Services was created by Michigan Farm Bureau and we have been around for about six years now. And that's how long I've been with the company. Pretty much in my role is to identify growers that are interested on the H2A program. And I pretty much cover the entire state of Michigan.
Introductions of Experts
00:00:43
Speaker
Hi, this is Jordan DeVries, produce safety technician. I cover the west central part of the Southern Lower Peninsula. And my role is to work with farms growing produce to help with free, voluntary, and confidential on-farm technical assistance to reduce microbial risks on the farm to fresh produce.
Training Workers on Microbial Hazards
00:01:07
Speaker
So Eligio,
00:01:08
Speaker
When we're talking about microbial hazards, we often can conceptualize them as these invisible risks that are out there. It's often best to when you're doing training describe risks related to previous experience or familiarity. How can this be used to improve training? You know, the thing is that.
00:01:28
Speaker
This is going to depend on the background of each individual. We have workers that come from all over the place, from Mexico, and of course some
00:01:40
Speaker
Hispanic workers that live here in the United States. And even though mostly they all come from a rural background, you have workers that probably have different ways that they were raised, different ways that they were growing up on different states, on different regions. So it's hard sometimes to make an assessment of what is their understanding of microbial hazards.
00:02:09
Speaker
Usually on this case, I prefer to talk to them about what are microbial hazards in language that they could understand and that it can make sense to them, that it's not too technical. I also talk to them about how microbial hazards can be transmitted and what are the dangers and how we can prevent transmission of these microbial hazards.
00:02:39
Speaker
Great. How can we better train harvest workers to be risk assessors where they're able to maybe spot signs of animal intrusion or any browse or poop on, on the crop? I think that continuous training and showing them examples of what are the risks and how to handle that and the best way to do it.
00:03:06
Speaker
But it comes with a lot of repetition and a lot of remindings to the workers. Hey, you know, these are some of the risks that you can see in the farm. And these are some of the ways that hazards can enter into the farm. Again, this is just something that we just need to be constantly talking and with open communication with the workers.
00:03:31
Speaker
I think eventually they started to get it, especially if these are workers that come back year after year to the farm. Excellent.
Risk Assessment and Communication Strategies
00:03:41
Speaker
In risk assessment, we talk about risk being high, medium, or low. And I think a good question is, what's high to one person may not be a high risk to another. Is it worth it to maybe look at changing those?
00:03:56
Speaker
definitions between high, medium, and low, or how do you discuss risks like that in training?
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think so because I think that workers would understand this concept pretty well. However, I think it is important to train and point to the workers which areas or activities are high risk or medium risk or low risk. And of course, you know, training them on how to proceed on each of these areas or what are the standard steps or what are the standard procedures to determine
00:04:32
Speaker
which one is high, which one is medium, which one is low, and how to approach the solution for that particular area or for that particular problem. Great, so kind of being reductive a little bit and just saying what's that standard either set by the produce safety rule or the farms food safety policies and just trying to say this is the line and understanding where that is. Correct, I believe so, yeah.
00:05:00
Speaker
Great.
Legal Requirements for Retraining
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah. So here's one that I often like to go and talk with both farm managers and sometimes their workers is discussing when it's time to do retraining. You get that taught from the physical produce safety rule that farms should be evaluating training needs and continuously assessing whether the training is working as well as if workers understand the why of the training or the activity that they're doing. So.
00:05:29
Speaker
When we're talking about getting out there and telling workers, hey, we need to have you retrained on this, it's important that we don't have them see that as something that they're being punished for. What's a way to best introduce that as an opportunity for calibration and further knowledge, more so that you're doing something wrong and I need to tell you that you're doing something wrong?
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah, you know, this is something that I see year after year every time the workers come back to the farm because one of the first things we do when the workers arrive is to provide an onboarding training orientation. And I know that this type of training can feel like a hassle to many workers, probably all of them.
00:06:14
Speaker
But I believe that if we explain to the workers before we start the training that this is required by law and that this is something that we just have to do every year or throughout the season, they understand that this is something that they just do as part of the company policies. And again, it's not sometimes something that maybe is
00:06:37
Speaker
the employer that is forcing them to do it but it's a requirement that even the employer has to comply that has to follow and you know and that is not necessarily because they're being punished or because they because they're doing something wrong communicating this part to them like hey this is something we do every year and we just have to get through it so yeah here's a good one that i've seen doing many risk assessments on farms
Food Contact Surfaces and Hygiene Practices
00:07:05
Speaker
And it's kind of an identified training need, but it's this idea of identifying what is a food contact surface and what standard we need to have to ensure that that's a surface that is, that can be used for harvest. So we talk about often having it be free of visible silt, but it's also important to be concerned about any fecal matter contamination on it as well, or the potential for
00:07:30
Speaker
you know, fecal matter to contaminate it. If it's being stored under a tree, for instance, having bird poop land on or in harvest containers. Is this been a new thing that you've added to training? And if so, how do you talk about it with workers?
00:07:45
Speaker
Definitely visuals are very helpful for the workers. Sometimes we can't imagine that something would be a big deal. So the more examples you can give to the workers, the better. When you're on your farm and there are things that you would like to train your workers on, like what are the surfaces? What are the areas of risk? I sometimes would recommend that maybe go around the farm
00:08:11
Speaker
take pictures of the areas or the stuff that can be a risk and then when you're doing the training you can show the workers hey you know these are the areas that can be a high risk you know or a microbial hazard so that they
00:08:26
Speaker
can understand, you know, like, oh, okay, so these are the areas where I need to watch for. So I say the more example, the more pictures you show them, but what are the potential dangers of contamination or what are the potential areas of contamination, the better for them.
00:08:47
Speaker
Sure. So would it be helpful for growers to maybe think about keeping a dirty harvest log or a pick bucket around? Oh, definitely. Pass that around the room and show them, but this is too dirty to use. And then a clean one.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because you know, if you think about it, unfortunately, not every country uses the same food safety standards. And if they are not required in their native country to do some of these stuff or to follow some of these food safety guidance, they are not going to know what are the kind of stuff they need to look for. Great. Great. You know, from talking to growers as well as some experience I've had, we've really seen harvest workers adapt well.
00:09:32
Speaker
to correct bladder usage often, what to do about handling dropped produce, as well as really improving hand washing and bathroom use and following farm policies and guidelines that we set out. But we've seen maybe some need to further improvement of isolating break areas from harvest areas and having a dedicated space for breaks, maybe
00:10:00
Speaker
Increasing the frequency that we hand wash when they're in washing they're doing really well at it You know singing happy birthday twice or you know making sure they get all the back sides of the hands of the hand washing But maybe just not hand washing enough, you know after coming back from break or even you know driving a personal vehicle and then the other one is you know being able to monitor for animals when we're talking about fecal matter getting onto the crop especially
00:10:29
Speaker
How can food safety managers and farm managers try to integrate this into their training plan? Is there a good way to maybe set out specific break areas ahead of time?
Integrating Safety into Daily Duties
00:10:41
Speaker
So this is something that I've seen many times, Jordan. And I think that many of the challenges that we have in the area of food safety is that many workers don't give it the importance it deserves because they don't see it as part of their job.
00:11:01
Speaker
You see, for them, their job is harvesting, pruning, weeding, et cetera. So they see the risk assessment and prevention as a chore. It's a hassle. I feel like they think that that's someone else's job to deal with.
00:11:20
Speaker
So one thing that I feel like we as an industry need to focus is that we need to make sure that we integrate food safety as part of their job duties and responsibilities. See, the problem is that that takes time and understanding, and it's something that many of them probably are not used to, like I was mentioning before, or they don't have to worry about.
00:11:47
Speaker
So they are focused on production and how much money I'm making per bucket or per box when they are being paid by piece rate. So one thing that it probably will be helpful is that we need to keep reminding them that washing their hands and watching for fecal material and other factors of food safety is also part of their job, you know, and it's not only the production side.
00:12:14
Speaker
It's something that unfortunately we have to keep repeating. We have to keep bringing, bringing up, you know. I'm glad you brought up part of a harvest workers duty is watching for risks and kind of keeping a vigilant eye out there of, you know, what could be cross contaminating the crop.
Enhancing Food Safety Culture
00:12:35
Speaker
So we're talking about food safety culture principles and trying to make this more of a holistic approach to food safety, bottom up communication.
00:12:43
Speaker
is really a very important tool. And we try to tell farmers that they need to be open to hearing things that the workers are seeing and having the workers feel like they have some agency in the decisions made on the farm when it comes to food safety or at least having their concerns addressed. How do we work with both in training needs with workers as well as growers on telling workers that they can freely communicate things that they see
00:13:12
Speaker
And also having the farm managers be more accepting to take input from growers. And a good example of this that we see on farms is you've got a portable sanitation bathrooms. Often, you know, it's left to the contractor, third party contractor who is servicing that to make sure that they're stocked with paper towel and soap and have water for hand washing. But we want workers, if it's out of soap, we want them to be able to communicate that to the farmer and
00:13:40
Speaker
hopefully find another place where they can wash their hands before returning to work as an example. Do you talk about this in training and how open to hearing that they need to understand what workers are saying and be able to make adjustments on the fly are farmers? I think that we have more than
00:14:00
Speaker
one issue on this situation. One reason is like I was mentioning is that sometimes it's because workers don't think it's that important or it's not a big deal or you know unfortunately sometimes they simply don't care.
00:14:15
Speaker
This can also be, you know, like I mentioned before, one of those things that is different to them because they have never had to do this before in many farms in Mexico or other countries. There are no portable bathrooms or wash stations. So when workers have to use the bathroom, so they just go in the woods and they might use rinse their hands if there's water available.
00:14:39
Speaker
So it's completely different from working here in the United States. So another reason could be of how easy or how difficult we are making it to the worker to notify when the wash station is out of supplies. Maybe they want to notify the supervisor, but if the supervisor is not around or if he is too far,
00:15:05
Speaker
The worker might not feel like making the effort to go all the way to meet with the supervisor to notify him because he feels like he has to get back to work. Or by the time he sees the supervisor later, maybe he already forgot. You know, most workers, like I say, they just want to get back to work.
00:15:24
Speaker
So now, you know, the other day you mentioned an idea that I really like, you know, I think it's a great idea. The one of using red cars that maybe the workers can use to place it on the areas that need attention, you know, maybe flipping a car or something.
00:15:39
Speaker
I think that would be very effective and I wonder if maybe some growers have tried it. I would like to see that and see how much that works. I think that's great. And the other thing is that maybe they don't feel comfortable communicating with the supervisor because they don't want to see, probably they don't want to see as if they are telling the supervisor what to do or how to do their job.
00:16:05
Speaker
In this case it could be that the supervisor maybe is not very approachable it could be maybe the supervisor's personality or management style so i don't know there's many factors included in this when i feel like maybe the workers are not
00:16:23
Speaker
feeling comfortable talking to the supervisor. This is why I always talk to growers and other people and tell them how important it is that supervisors talk to their workers in a manner that inspires trust and let them know that it's okay to let them know about some of these issues. I think open communication here between the supervisor or crew leader and the workers is key and it's very important.
00:16:52
Speaker
Great. Thanks, Alejio. That was a really comprehensive answer there. And I have seen on a couple of farms lately where farms might give, you know, yellow card and red card for workers to put in their pocket. And, you know, they don't feel like they have the authority or they feel comfortable talking to farmers or farm managers about food safety risks. If they can kind of stick that sort of comment card out there and then, you know, they may want to go investigate, you know, what that issue was.
Non-verbal Communication Tools
00:17:23
Speaker
It's somewhat difficult because you're not being able to point specifically to issues, but it's a way for if you've got a farm manager that's aware and watching the crew pretty closely, you can spot that, all of a sudden realize that there's a risk and they want to go evaluate what that may be. Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately, sometimes we have
00:17:44
Speaker
Well, of course, it's like everywhere else. You have all sorts of personality on the workers. You have the very outspoken, the very outgoing, the extroverted. But again,
00:17:55
Speaker
You also have the introverted, the shy worker, you know, that it's, you know, doesn't feel like talking too much, doesn't feel like participating. And obviously sometimes they don't feel like talking to the supervisor, it's just their personality of the worker. So this idea that you told me or that you talk about, it's a great way for them to communicate when something needs attention.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:18:25
Speaker
Links or definitions to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at c-a-n-r dot m-s-u dot e-d-u slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.