Produce Safety Alliance Training: Long-Term Behavioral Change Study in the North Central Region

Starting in 2016, the Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) Grower Training has been offered as the only Food and Drug Administration–approved course to meet the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule educational requirements for produce growers. This study interviewed farmers four to six years after training to measure changes made. Other studies have measured change one year after training. The most common types of changes this study’s participants made were in the areas of health and hygiene and preventing cross-contamination. These changes did not differ by farm size. The authors expected farmers would have made more difficult changes, given the greater amount of time between taking the training and the study. However, the greatest barriers to making food safety changes—limited time, money, and labor availability—persisted for study participants. This study also found that human capital was the most effective resource that helped farms make food safety changes. Recommendations based on the study include prioritizing states' federally funded Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) funds to pay for staff, taking advantage of the three ways to offer the PSA Grower Training, and investing in ways to help overcome the main barriers that growers identified: time, money, and labor constraints.