Assessing Food Safety Knowledge, Barriers, and Resource Needs for Training Produce Farm Workers and Supervisors Following the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule established standards for safe produce production, including training for personnel handling produce or food-contact surfaces and their supervisors. We investigated Maryland produce farm owners and supervisors (collectively referred to as “supervisors”) and workers regarding on-farm food safety knowledge, barriers to effective food safety worker training, and worker training resource needs following the COVID-19 pandemic. The online survey recorded farm characteristics, worker demographics, food safety knowledge, training barriers brought about by or exacerbated by impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and resource needs. Among 48 respondents (31 supervisors) most had less than 10 years of farm experience (70.8%). Only 27.3% correctly answered cleaning and sanitizing questions. Nearly half (45.7%) requested more hands-on training materials. The pandemic negatively affected worker food safety training by increasing stress concerning food safety and limiting time and funding for worker training (81.8%–95.5%). Another barrier to training was supervisors’ comfort with the materials used to train workers (68.2%). Five supervisors reported no training specific to workers’ duties. Time was a major barrier to effective training. Findings will inform the development of a mixed-media toolkit and supervisor manual to assist in training workers.