Building Capacity in Agricultural Service Providers to Support Farmers in Regulations, Rules, and Legal Compliance

YEAR One (October 1, 2014 – September 30, 2015)

1. Winter 2015. Twenty beneficiaries will access videos and written content housed in a Moodle classroom to increase their awareness and understanding of the primary NH Department of Agriculture and NH Health and Human Services agricultural regulations that the agencies feel are the most important for farmers to know and comply with.
2. Winter 2015. Twenty beneficiaries will participate in a live interactive webinar to increase their knowledge about the primary NH Department of Agriculture and the NH Health and Human Services agricultural regulations that the agencies feel are the most important for farmers to know and comply with.
3. Winter 2015. Twenty beneficiaries attend a day-long interactive workshop taught by NH state officials and other legal experts to build on the knowledge gained through the interactive webinars and review of the Moodle classroom materials. Beneficiaries will increase their knowledge through interactive learning activities, lectures, and questions. 
4. Winter/Spring 2015. Twenty beneficiaries will attend a live interactive webinar to process the information they gained from the in-person session, and to learn about educational materials regarding top priority NH state regulations and rules available for use in their work with farmers, including templates, PowerPoints, and/or videos.
5. Spring/Summer 2015. Seventeen agricultural service providers will conduct workshops or farmer consultations informing NH producers about how to comply with some or all of these primary state regulations and rules.

Description of milestone accomplishments: 

This project became far more complex and difficult than was realized during the planning phase.  Becoming clear on the relevant laws farmers needed to understand and translating that into effective, correct, and precise educational tools was a time consumptive, difficult challenge.  The first year of the project was devoted entirely to these endeavors.  We now have 15 videos and a written legal guide ready to educate agricultural service providers in NH.  Another five videos and accompanying chapters are in the works as well.  We have forged effective working relationships with the NH. Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, and the NH Department of Health and Human Services.  Additionally, we have forged an effective relationship with a highly skilled agricultural law attorney.

Despite being behind in our efforts, I feel very confident that we can do the training and still accomplish our performance target in the time we have left on this grant project. 

Milestones for Years Two and Three were revised from those in the original plan to reflect the revised educational approach adopted for the project.

Year Two (October 1, 2015 – September 30, 2016)

1. Fall 2015 – Legal Guide for NH Farmers is completed for the first 13 chapters identified as priority topic areas by farmers. – Successfully complete. Chapters have been updates by educators and have been expanded.  Additionally, more chapters have been developed.

2. Winter 2016 – UNH Cooperative Extension Program Planning Team meets to develop curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation methods and tools. Team consists of Adult Education Specialist (Chuck Bagley), IT Distance Learning Specialist (Faye Cragin), Assistant Ag Educator (Pam Bruss), Regional Ag Field Specialist and Assistant-SARE Coordinator (Oliva Saunders), Regional Ag Field Specialist and SARE Coordinator (Seth Wilner), and  Evaluation Specialist (Julien Kouame).  Guest appearance by SARE PDP Coordinator Janet McAllister.  – Successfully complete

Our program model consists of gathering the participants (comprised of Extension, and non-profit agricultural service providers) for an in-person kick-off event.  Prior to this event, participants will: 1) receive an abstract of chapters in the brand new NH Legal Guide for farmers, and 2) using these abstracts, identify 2 or 3 farmers with whom they will work to address topics contained in the Legal Guide, and 3) Complete a survey to measure their knowledge, skills, trepidations and attitudes on agricultural law and working with farmers in this topic area. This will serve as a base-line from which we will measure growth and change.

At the training event, the participants will select at least one chapter in which they desire to build their expertise. The participants will learn how to use a Moodle Classroom that has been set up for them.  Likewise, they will meet their fellow participants to forge a network of agricultural service providers with whom they will be working to increase their knowledge of agricultural laws.

Finally, participants will be given a survey tool to take to the farmers with whom they will be working. This will serve as a tool to collect farmer baseline data. 

3. Spring 2016 - 20 agricultural service providers participate in an in-person kickoff event utilizing the curriculum described above in milestone seven. The participants will leave with an increased understanding of the program expectations, an increased understanding of the legal topics they select to delve into, a timeline and action plan for completion of fact sheets, and team building. The beneficiaries will also increase their awareness of what materials exist for them to use in their educational efforts with farmers regarding top priority NH state regulations and rules.  

Complete. Twenty-three agricultural service providers participated the in-person kickoff workshop on May 10, 2016. Participants formed into 13 teams for creating fact sheets and developed action plans for their group’s work.

Pre-Program Survey

Before the kickoff event, participants responded to a pre-program survey that asked the following questions:

1. Below is a list of legal topics impacting farmers in NH. Which of these topics, if any, would be valuable for farmers in your area to gain a better practical knowledge of, to improve the operation of their farming business?

• Legal Business Structures
• Contracts and Agreements
• Labor Law
• Environmental Law
• Water Law
• Dealing with Legal Disputes
• Planning and Zoning
• Animal Management and Welfare
• There are no areas of law farmers require a greater practical knowledge of, to improve the operation of their farming business
• Comments/Other Topics

1. In few words, describe the attitudes and perceptions of the farmers you usually work with to becoming more legally compliant
2. As an agriculture service provider, what concerns, fears, apprehensions, challenges and/or barriers do you have about facilitating farmer’s legal education in the field?
3. As an agriculture service provider, what concerns, fears, apprehensions, challenges and barriers do you think farmers have about legal compliance?
4. How comfortable are you educating farmers on legal topics?

Very comfortable —1 ——2——3——4——5——6—–7—Not at all comfortable

5. How confident are you with your knowledge about state and federal farming regulations?

Very confident —1 ——2——3——4——5——6—–7—Not at all confident

6. What would be the best way to communicate or educate your farmers on legal compliance?

• One-on-one conversation
• Email
• Online information
• Others (Please list): _______________________________________

This results of the survey were used to prioritize the chapters of a legal guide and the skill building to deliver education to farmers. The highlights of the survey showed that confidence in knowledge of legal the legal topics that participants identified as important to farmers ranged widely from not at all confident to somewhat confident.  There were zero responses for very confident.  Participants also has a wide range in their comfort teaching legal issues to farmers. The majority of participants were uncomfortable teaching this subject to farmers.

The major challenges that participants identified included simply deciphering legal writing to know what a law says and means, fear of touching the subject, resistance by farmers to hearing about laws, politics, and being shut down.

Concerns and fears that participants identified mirrored the challenges and included: too complicated, interpretation of the law, too many regulations to learn, feeling overwhelmed by the project, limited time, and limited knowledge.

The participants also expressed concerns about their own liability if they misinterpreted a law, were incorrect in explaining the laws, the accuracy of any legal resources that were generated, and that they couldn’t know everything.  

The following quotes exemplified these feelings and perceptions:

• I would hesitate to help unless I was certain I understood the law in question – I could make things worse if I get it wrong.
• Give a wrong legal advice
• Getting the right info to the right producers
• I don’t want to be the reason people don’t comply correctly

Workshop Description

After a review of the survey results and a discussion of strategies and resources to assist the agricultural service providers, all went around the room and signed up to increase their knowledge and provide outreach to farmers on legal topics of their choosing.

The group was encouraged to sign up for no more than 2 topics, although some signed up for 3 or 4 topics.  A template sheet to guide group meetings and achieve outcomes was handed out.

Each topic offered had a corresponding chapter in a legal guide that was created in the first year of the project.  Although these were not fully complete, they were in solid draft form.

4. Summer 2016 – Twenty Participants work in their self-selected teams to increase their understanding of the regulations they chose to study. The 20 participants utilize a Moodle forum to discuss questions, increase their knowledge, and ultimately develop a one to two page fact sheet on their topic.  The fact sheets will have at least the following information:  1) To whom the regulation applies, 2) A synthesis of the rules, 3) Actions farmers can take to be in compliance, 4) Where to turn for additional information, and 5) The oversight agency in charge of compliance.

In Progress. The Moodle forum is established, participants have formed teams and begun work on their fact sheets. Some teams have finished their fact sheets while others are still in progress.  All teams have made substantial progress.

5. Summer 2016 – Attorney Amy Manzelli, NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food Division of Regulatory Services Director Jennifer Gournert, NH Department of Health and Human Services Director Colleen Smith, and a NH Department of Labor Inspector will review the fact sheets created by the educators to make sure they are factually correct and touched on the major points.

In Progress. Several chapters have been reviewed, additional chapters have been submitted and are awaiting review.

6. Summer 2016 – Twenty program participants work with one to three farmers each to build the farmers’ knowledge about selected regulations and how to comply with these primary.  

Progress Note: Sixteen participants who responded to a verification survey in December 2016 reported they have worked with 121 farmers to help them build their knowledge and/or address legal concerns on their farms. More information about the participants’ actions working with farmers is reported in the performance target outcomes narrative below.

7. Late summer/Early Fall 2016 - Twenty agricultural service providers attend an in-person session. At this session each team will present the fact sheets they developed.  This will serve to increase the participants’ ability to educate peers and farmers on the regulations they selected as well as to build the knowledge of all participants on the 13 regulations currently comprising the NH Legal Guide for Farmers.  They will leave the session with the ability to educate farmers about more topics than those they studied themselves.

Progress Note.  We have been unable to find a common date to hold this educational event. As such our project management team held a meeting to re-plan how the project moves forward.  Instead of trying to get all 17 to 20 participants in the same room at the same time, we are looking at alternative models to address this.  No final conclusions have been reached at the time of this report.    

All four participants thereafter worked with 11 farmers and an additional 5 agricultural business owners to help these people write value-added processing plans that were compliant with FSMA Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule.  Two of these educators also worked with NH Farm Bureau to write newsletter articles that reached hundreds of growers across the state.

Voiced-over PowerPoints and On-line decision-making tools were developed for both growers and ag service providers alike.  Eleven beneficiaries used these tools to increase their skills. Six of these 11 beneficiaries assisted 144 growers to understand different aspects of FSMA.

Rather than hold a project-facilitated workshop, all  program participants were invited to attend FSMA training events and utilize our on-line resources.  Additionally, FSMA capacity building was integrated into UNHCE Agricultural staff meetings.    

We did reach all 20 program participants through these venues.

Completed but modified: The beneficiaries were shown the on-line materials at several different events, including being sent links to the these educational resources via email.

Ten beneficiaries held workshops or worked one-on-one with farmers to assist them with understanding FSMA and FSMA compliance needs, this included, value-added processing (HACCP) and other on-farm compliance components of FSMA.

No single common date could be found, so our program team made individual phone calls to compile success stories, outcomes, and future programmatic needs. These needs were used to write an additional grant (NERME) on legal educational needs for farmers.

1. Fall 2016. Eight new chapters will be added to the NH Legal Guide for Farmers, completing this educational resource. This resource will be hosted on the websites of UNH Cooperative Extension, the NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, NH Farm Bureau, and NOFA-NH.  It will be available for downloading and advertised to farmers. The new chapters that have been identified include:

• A checklist for hiring farm labor in NH, Zoning regulations pertaining to NH farms, Right to farm in NH, the new Agritourism law explained, and chapters on the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Completed.  In all there are 15 chapters that were completed.  We did not include a chapter on FSMA as we generated many other resources and so many existed already (see above).  The guide chapters include:

LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW

LEGAL ORGANIZATION STRUCTURES

TAXATION AND THE FARM BUSINESS

INTERSTATE COMMERCE –SALES AND TRANSIT

UNIFORM LAWWEIGHTS AND MEASURES

FOOD LABELING IN NEWHAMPSHIRE

HOMESTEAD OPERATIONS

ORGANIC CERTIFICATION, FARMERS’ MARKETS

MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS REGULATIONS

ANIMAL HEALTH

MEAT AND POLTRY SAFTEY

CARCASS COMPOSTING

ZONING AND LAND USE

MUNICIPLE LAWS

2. Winter 2017 – The 20 program participants will come together for another in-person educational event. Prior to this session they will receive an abstract of the eight new chapters.  They will again be asked to select at least 2 farms with whom they will work. 

The same model (enhanced by data collected from evaluations of previous sessions) will be implemented.  Thus participants will leave the in-person training, and use a Moodle Classroom to develop a second set of distilled factsheets.

At this in-person event, the 20 program participants will take another evaluation to track changes in their knowledge and attitudes surrounding legal expertise and building skills working with farmers in this topic area.  They will also be given the same evaluation that they used in the summer of 2016 (with the first set of farmers with whom they worked) so they can use it with the new set of farmers.

Changed/Modified – We could not find a common date to all get together, and there was not a uniform interest in doing so.  Instead we asked participants to work in their teams or on their own to build their knowledge. We further invited participants to write down any questions generated in their self-study so we could collate these and give them to the authoring lawyers.  We arranged written feedback or phone conversations to have these questions answered.

3. Winter 2017 - 20 Participants will work in their self-selected teams to increase their understanding of the regulations they chose to study. The 20 participants utilize a Moodle forum to discuss questions, increase their knowledge, and ultimately develop a 1 to 2 page fact sheet on their topic.  The fact sheets will have at least the following information:  1) Who the regulation applies to, 2) A synthesis of the rules, 3) Actions farmers can take to be in compliance, 4) Where to turn for additional information, and 5) The oversight agency in charge of compliance.

Completed – This milestone was completed.  The participants utilized the on-line forum or they worked together or alone to increase their knowledge, draft summaries, actions for farmers, or synthesis of their chosen chapters.

4. Winter of 2017 - A subgroup of the 20 participants will work together to develop a day-long workshop for farmers and other agricultural professionals on chapters covered in the NH Legal Guide for Farmers.

Completed/Modified – Participants chose to engage farmers in ways of their own choosing.  Farmer engagement by the 15 participants included: 38 fact sheets or educational tools, 41 webinars, talks and presentations, 14 workshops and in 297 consultations.

5. Winter of 2017 – The participant subgroup will teach a day-long workshop for 25 farmers.   This educational event will continue to build the skills of the agricultural service providers, as well as increase the knowledge of farmers and other agricultural educators.  The program participants conducting the workshop will work with Extension specialists, agricultural agency staff, and legal experts to make sure the event uses effective educational techniques and is factually sound.

Completed/modified – see report above for milestone 4

6. Spring of 2017. 20 program participants will work with an additional 2 farms each, bringing the total number of farmers to at least 4 per participant.

Completed – Of the 15 participants, 13 reported they engaged 4 or more farmers.  The remaining two participants did not respond to repeated efforts of contact.

7. Spring of 2017 - Attorney Amy Manzelli, NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food Division of Regulatory Services Director Jennifer Gournert, NH Department of Health and Human Services Director Colleen Smith, and a NH Department of Labor Inspector will review the fact sheets created by the educators to make sure they are factually correct and touched on the major points.

Completed.  All chapters have been reviewed by appropriate lawyers and/or agency department heads.  This gave tremendous confidence to the agricultural service providers using the guide.

8. Summer of 2017 - 20 agricultural service providers attend an in-person session. At this session each team will present the fact sheets they developed.  This will serve to increase the participants’ ability to educate peers and farmers on the regulations they selected as well as to build the knowledge of all participants on the 13 regulations currently comprising the NH Legal Guide for Farmers.  They will leave the session with the ability to educate farmers about more topics than those they studied themselves topics.   The participants will also receive a second evaluation tool to administer to all the farmers with whom they worked.  This second tool will track changes in farmers’ attitudes and knowledge about the rules and regulations they have learned, actions changed, and any benefits that may have been realized.

Not done – no desire of participants to get together in person.

9. Fall of 2017 - 17 agricultural service providers will participate in a live interactive webinar to discuss the program and share personal learnings, increasing everyone’s knowledge about personal success stories and farm needs.

Not completed – We conducted phone interviews with each participant, reaching 13 of the 15.

10. Fall 2017 – All participants will conduct interviews with farmers to assess any changes made on farms as a result of the work the participants did.

Not completed by all.  Those who did complete this found that farmers implemented many changes on their farm to comply with FSMA, labor laws, labeling, zoning, and other rules.