Changes in U.S. produce grower food safety practices from 1999 to 2016

Assessing the costs and returns of on-farm food safety improvements: A survey of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) training participants

“…The cost of implementation has been identified as a primary barrier to implementing food safety practices on the farm [ 9 – 11 ]. Costs are complex and include the time to develop farm food safety plans, establish recordkeeping practices, hire additional labor, train workers, and invest in additional inputs, supplies, infrastructure, and equipment.…”

“…Costs are complex and include the time to develop farm food safety plans, establish recordkeeping practices, hire additional labor, train workers, and invest in additional inputs, supplies, infrastructure, and equipment. Decision-making is further complicated since growers need to weigh uncertain benefits of changing food safety practices against their significant costs [ 11 ]. Such benefits may include maintaining and expanding existing market channel sales, accessing new markets and buyers, and strengthening of their farm brand to prospective buyers due to their food safety improvements.…”

“…Distributional implications across farms of different sizes regarding the costs of implementing improved food safety practices have received considerable attention. Studies using grower surveys or case studies have consistently found that expenditures on food safety practices increase with farm size but less than proportionally [ 9 , 12 – 18 ]. In other words, smaller farms have higher average costs per acre in food safety investments relative to larger farms.…”

“…Second, we rely on a unique data set from GAPs training participants in New York State (NYS) that enumerates additional food safety investments made by producers as a result of the GAPs training received and the costs and benefits to producers from those investments. In so doing, we are able to explicitly account for changes in food safety costs relative to changes in food safety benefits, as opposed to most of the literature that examine the costs of existing food safety practices already in place [ 9 , 14 , 16 – 18 ]. GAPs programming evaluations have been conducted in other regions [ 20 , 21 ], but none formally considered the costs and returns to growers of food safety improvements as a result of the training programs.…”

Bacterial Community Dynamics Distinguish Poultry Compost from Dairy Compost and Non-Amended Soils Planted with Spinach

“…In 2015, the use of manure-derived fertilizer occurred in 11.7% of U.S. fruit and vegetable farms, a significant 2.6% increase from six years prior. Much of this increase is attributable to the growing popularity of composted manure, which increased in use by 6.2% in the same period [ 1 ]. Farmers choose compost amendments based on price unless there is a convincing reason to avoid a material—e.g., it is known to contain harmful abiotic or biotic contaminants.…”