Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Farm to School
33 Plays4 years ago
This episode features Lori Yelton, Nutrition and Food Management Consultant with MDARD, Mary Rose Vanas, Food Service Director for Shelby Public Schools, Landen Tetil, Produce Safety Technician with the Marquette County Conversation District, and Mariel Borgman, Community Food Systems Educator with MSU Extension. They discuss the value farm to school has on the community, and provide their own perspectives on food safety in farm to school settings.
Additional Resources:
Michigan Agriculture Facts and Figures – https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdard/MI_Ag_Facts__Figures_474011_7.pdf
MDARD Magazine 2020 – https://farmflavor.com/michigan/michigan-magazine/michigan-agriculture-2020/
USDA Farm to School Resources – https://www.fns.usda.gov/cfs/farm-school-resources
MSU-CRFS Cultivate Michigan – https://www.cultivatemichigan.org/resources
Groundworks – https://www.tencentsmichigan.org/build_your_farm_to_school_program
Farm Flavor Michigan – https://farmflavor.com/michigan/michigan-ag-education/michigans-farm-to-school-connection/
Taste the Local Difference – https://www.localdifference.org/
MSU Extension Community Food Systems Team Members – https://www.canr.msu.edu/community_food_systems/experts
Recorded On-Farm Food Safety Webinar: Michigan Farm to Institution Network Virtual Network Meeting – https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/mfin-on-farm-food-safety-webinar
Michigan Farm to School: Serving Up Local Foods – https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/michigan-farm-to-school-fact-sheet
Information brief: How do institutional food service professionals know that produce from their suppliers is safe? – https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/institutional-food-safety
National Farm to School Network – http://www.farmtoschool.org/
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.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Produce Safety and FSMA
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. Hi, I'm Lori Yellen. I'm with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. I am a nutrition and food management consultant, and we are a partner in supporting primary school efforts.
Meet the Experts: Roles in Food Safety
00:00:25
Speaker
My name is Mary Rose Vanis. I'm the Food Service Director for Shelby Public Schools. We're over in Oceana County, just about beside Lake Michigan. I'm Mariel Borkman. I'm a Community Food Systems Educator with MSU Extension. I do a lot of work in farm to school as well as food safety.
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm Landon Teedle and I'm a produce safety technician. I work out of the Marquette County Conservation District and serve most of the Upper Peninsula, working with farms to increase their on-farm food safety practices.
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, welcome everyone. Thanks for being here today. I'm excited to talk about this topic. It's something that I am super excited about exploring with you all.
Farm to School Programs: Insights and Experiences
00:01:13
Speaker
So Mary Rose, what made you interested in farm to school and what made farm to school really feasible for your school district? Well, in 2013, I was given the opportunity by
00:01:26
Speaker
Michigan Department of Education to go to the USDA Produce Safety University week in Washington DC. And it alleviated a lot of my fears around food safety and what precautions we were able to make as a school.
00:01:45
Speaker
directly ourselves. We had the opportunity to see the markets in process and we were shown by the teachers and farmers what happens to the fruit before we get our hands on it. So they were actually giving us the ability to go as a school district rather than have to go through a vendor directly to the farmer.
00:02:13
Speaker
We then came back and it took us a few years and we got a grant from No Kid Hungry because what our main issue is that we wanted to reduce our carbon footprint. Our school district is right in the middle of all the growing area. So we applied for a grant and we got 26,000 better grants so that we could facilitate going out to farms and picking up the food ourselves.
00:02:44
Speaker
That's a great perspective, Mary Rose. I'm wondering from a food safety standpoint, if there was any considerations on your end, did you think about food safety when you were picking out a farmer to purchase from or what kinds of things are you looking for in your relationship with a farmer?
Balancing GAAP Certification and Direct Purchases
00:03:05
Speaker
Well we actually did ask our farms to be GAAP certified and if they weren't GAAP certified we wanted to see their standard operating practices so that we could ensure that if we needed them to that they could reach those standards.
00:03:22
Speaker
We didn't want to not buy from small farms simply because they weren't certified, but we wanted them to reach the standards which are required for them to say, for example, sell to a local store. The farms that we have been purchasing from actually sell some of their own processing. So they reached a point where they have all the required safety that as a state we require,
00:03:52
Speaker
when we were at that produce safety university, they were saying that state law and federal law are two different things. So it was, I would say, a little interesting to see which was actually required by the state and what was required by the federal. Yeah, absolutely. Those are two very different standards. Yes. That's really good point. This is Lori. And, you know, even at the local we find
00:04:19
Speaker
the local public health people can find different information sometimes too so that's one of the things we're trying to do more so and making sure that we have consistent messaging and I think the understanding too is there's so many certifications out there and working to get people to know what those certifications are especially the food service directors
00:04:41
Speaker
that can help, like Mary Rose said, eliminate some of those concerns that if it's not GAAP, is there, you know, have they gone through the risk assessment or the food service directors having that ability to know the questions to ask or to visit the farms, things like that. So, yeah, I think that's a great area that we probably could really continue to improve on too.
00:05:05
Speaker
I wanted to say that from a food service director's point of view and due diligence should anything ever happen, it's kind of scary, you know, that your vendor maybe is telling you that you need to have someone who is GAAP certified and they take that worry away from you by ensuring that they're reaching every standard. So when you're going to like a small farm, I have a local small farm here,
00:05:34
Speaker
who the week before will call me and say I have 60 pounds of lettuce. So I have to ensure that it's up to the safety requirements. The vendor will tell you that we are ensuring that for you
00:05:53
Speaker
So therefore you don't have to worry about that. We need to eliminate that from the anxiety because you're very responsible when you're feeding thousands and thousands of children. I was initially told one time, buy cooked chicken because we take all the worry out of cooking it for you.
00:06:19
Speaker
Who's going to take all the worry out of purchasing the vegetables? We need to reassure food service directors that they don't necessarily have to buy from vendors and these are the steps. I think if someone gave them the steps that they need to take, then they would be more open to going directly to their farmers.
Deciphering Food Safety Certifications
00:06:42
Speaker
I think one of the best things to do is for a buyer and the farm to have a conversation about the needs that each one has. So I think that it's pretty important for one that the person buying the food to understand what they are requesting.
00:07:01
Speaker
of their suppliers. So having a good understanding of what they're asking for, whether it is a gap certification or a farm food safety plan or a Michigan food safety risk assessment, produce safety risk assessment.
00:07:19
Speaker
So it's pretty important that we are being respectful of the time and effort that goes into getting all of these different certifications. In addition, many of them require additional costs on behalf of the farm that are not always compensated for in the price of the product. So it's really a pretty complex decision. And it's one that should be considered by both buyer and farm.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like maybe one of the most important things to know upfront is just what is the difference between these different programs, right? I mean, you mentioned a food safety plan or a gap certification or on-farm risk assessment. And so, you know, I feel like it could be really hard to know what to ask of a farm without knowing the difference between all of those.
Setting Food Safety Standards with Schools and Farms
00:08:12
Speaker
For me, the anxiety around
00:08:17
Speaker
going to a farmer and tell, you know, actually knowing what the ABCs were was the vital educational part of it for me was that we were making a good decision. Absolutely. Yeah. And Landon, I know that you're really involved in this as well. Do you have any thoughts on maybe what is, what is a good way to proceed?
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, I really like how you phrased it, that you even need to start with a conversation. I think that that is so true.
00:08:49
Speaker
in every circumstance. It's a good thing for schools to have a set standard for food safety for what they want. I think that maybe it doesn't always have to be a gap audit. I think starting with the conversation, making sure the farm has food safety policies and that they are doing an effective job of keeping control of the spread of human pathogens, actually doing what it's supposed to be doing,
00:09:15
Speaker
Having that written down and written a food safety plan, I think is a great first step. Then steps up from there, I would consider to be the Michigan Food Safety on Farm Risk Assessment, which is you've got the help of a produce safety technician. It doesn't cost the farm money to get certified in that, but it's a step above just having a food safety plan and then a step above that.
00:09:44
Speaker
I would consider the gap audit. And so I think starting with that conversation and talking about scale and what exactly it is that's most important to the school in terms of what they're going to require. So I guess like going along with that, Mary Rose, how did your school decide to require a gap audit versus any other of these options?
00:10:10
Speaker
Well, we accept about it, but we also have the risk assessment in the smaller farms you aren't audited or don't have the camp audit. Like, for example, I want the school to be the center of the community. I want it to be
00:10:31
Speaker
our farmers, I want them to reach out to me and recently they've reached out to us when they've had too much lettuce. You know, they have an abundance and we would look for their risk assessment and not just the gap for the smaller farms. I want them to be able to reach out to us so that we can at least get them some money with our
00:10:56
Speaker
micro purchasing, which we're allowed to do now with MDE, I think we can buy up to $3,000 from local farms or stores in order to support local.
Michigan's Ten Cents a Meal Program and Local Food Purchases
00:11:11
Speaker
Thank you for sharing those insights, Mary Rose. I think that's really valuable. Does anyone else have anything to add to her?
00:11:18
Speaker
So Mary Rose mentioned a number of grant programs that they were able to get in order to help with their farm to school program. And I just wanted to mention another grant program that we have available in Michigan called the Ten Cents a Meal program. And this is a program that helps schools to purchase more local foods directly from farms or from a distributor as long as they can trace it back to the individual farm.
00:11:44
Speaker
and it's a really amazing program that is funded through our state legislature here in Michigan.
00:11:52
Speaker
So to learn more about that program, you can go to 10centsmichigan.org. And there's also a lot of resources to help schools with their application process that are available on that website. And some farmers might be interested in looking at some of that material as well, just to see what schools are needing to provide in order to report the types of things that they're purchasing through the program to meet the eligibility requirements.
00:12:19
Speaker
So just wanted to throw that one out there as well.
MDARD Support for Farm to School Programs
00:12:22
Speaker
So I wanted to talk about what MDARD programming is available for schools that are considering farm to school and what resources are available. So maybe Lori, you could answer that one for us. Sure. Well, currently we're working on a list of farms to increase our ability to communicate and to work with them and give them the education they need to make that connection with schools.
00:12:47
Speaker
Um, we also work on farm safety and we do a lot of food safety components as well. We have a committee that we work on the department with the department of education to make sure when questions come up, we can kind of, uh, share the two agencies to make sure we're both on the same length as far as information coming from local public health and what's coming from our department and MDE. So we work together on issues that come up. We do have a couple of resources that we often use, which is our MDARD magazine that comes out yearly.
00:13:17
Speaker
and our specialty crop book, which is facts and figures. It's a lot of education on what's grown in Michigan and when it's available, what's the nutrition behind it, what does it do for the state economically, where is it grown and things like that. That's a lot. Thanks, Lori. Yeah, going along those same lines, Mariel, I'm wondering what kind of support or program or resources are available from MSU extension side of things.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah, so specifically kind of on the farm to school coordination, the logistics of getting produce from the farm to school, as well as education for both producers and purchasers. We have a great partnership in the Michigan Farm to Institution Network, or sometimes called MIFN for short, that's the
00:14:08
Speaker
acronym, but that is a network that's coordinated by the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems with support from MSU Extension community food systems educators. So we have a lot of statewide regional and regional resources and events that support farm to institution. We also have our MSU Extension educators, which serve on a regional level to actually make some of those
00:14:33
Speaker
personal connections with food service directors, with school nutrition staff. So we can help provide information about the types of questions to ask, how to interpret the things that you hear back, especially, you know, if it's the buyer that hasn't spent a lot of time on a farm or is not super familiar with on-farm produce safety practices.
00:14:56
Speaker
and they're looking at a farmer's produce safety plan, they're just not really sure what to be looking for. So those are the kinds of things that we can provide resources to assist in.
Resources for Farmers to Ensure School Safety Compliance
00:15:08
Speaker
So we've been talking a lot about the requirements themselves, but what if a farm really wants to start selling into the school market, but maybe doesn't currently meet
00:15:19
Speaker
the type of food safety requirements that their school is asking for. Landon, can you talk a little bit about what resources might be available for the farmer? Yeah, so Michigan farmers in particular have this really great benefit of having access to produce safety technicians. I'm the produce safety technician for the Upper Peninsula, but there's also five
00:15:45
Speaker
downstate in various regions of the Lower Peninsula. And what's really beneficial about it is that we as technicians are available, completely free of charge and confidential and voluntary. We're available to a produce farmer to come out onto their farm and kind of do a walkthrough of their current food safety practices, identify maybe some areas where
00:16:13
Speaker
either a produce safety risk is present. So a risk that could spread human pathogens and potentially get people sick. So identifying where they're present or maybe identifying where things are, you know, like maybe a farmer is trying to do something here, but we could do it a little bit better.
00:16:32
Speaker
And so, you know, just going through and identifying risks and then coming up with ways based on the federal minimum standards, the FSMA produce safety rule, ways to mitigate or manage or sometimes even eliminate those risks, spending as little money as possible in a way that's going to be beneficial for all parties.
00:16:55
Speaker
If a farmer isn't quite meeting the standard that a school is asking for, they can have their local produce safety technician out and we can work with them one-on-one to raise their farm to a higher level of food safety.
00:17:10
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.