What Service Providers Must Know About Organic Rules and Regulations

What Service Providers Must Know About Organic Rules and Regulations

Summary

The goal of this project is to develop a collaborative team of agricultural trainers, including extension specialists, organic certifiers, and farmers, to develop a two day training workshop about organic production, certification and regulation. This is a “train the trainer” program. We will work with the experts from NCAT who developed the materials for organic training and agricultural specialists from several institutions to develop a curriculum for training service providers who work directly with farmers. This is a comprehensive program to train the trainers. We will implement the training program through workshops in Florida, Kentucky and the Virgin Islands at both 1862 and 1890 institutions. This program will be the first to use the training materials developed through NCAT’s SARE National Initiative grant entitled “Sustainability and Compliance Tools for Organic Farmers”. Our project will therefore serve as pilot test for NCAT’s materials and will link two SARE grants, enhancing the benefits of each.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Objective 1: Develop Multi-Disciplinary, Multi-Institutional Training Teams. In year one, each institution assembled a team of trainers for their state. The teams include state Extension specialists, representatives of certifying agencies and experienced organic producers. During the first year, the teams discussed and determined the types of training materials that would be developed during the course of this project utilizing conference calls and an in-person meeting in January 2004. Members of the teams were assigned to assist in developing one to several training modules. The participants determined that the modules would take an active participatory approach to learning.

Objective 2: Develop a Two-Day Comprehensive Training Program for Field Personnel. During year two, the teams worked on the second objective which was for the three teams to work together to develop a comprehensive two-day training program in the regulations covering organic production and certification for field personnel. The desired outcome was determined to be a training program for field personnel from the Cooperative Extension Service, other USDA field agencies, collaborating state agencies, and organic certifying agencies (public or private). The teams worked on developing seven modules to be tested at a pilot training.

Objective 3: Deliver Training to Field Personnel. The third objective is to deliver the training program to at least 125 individuals who work directly with farmers. The desired outcome is field service providers understand and are able to communicate the regulations regarding organic production in the United States to agricultural producers. The desired behavior is that field service providers develop training programs about the requirements for organic production for farmers and that they provide timely, accurate information to growers about the requirements for organic production on an individual consultation basis.

Objective 4: Finalization of Training Curriculum Distributed through NCAT’s ATTRA Project. Develop a comprehensive training program that can be used by other land grant institutions or other agriculturally related parties in organic regulations and certification. The training curriculum would utilize ATTRA’s materials developed from the SARE funded national initiative entitled “Sustainability and Compliance Tools for Organic Farmers“ and the materials developed from this project to provide a comprehensive training curriculum on the NOP final rule. NCAT’s ATTRA project will be responsible for distributing these materials to interested parties.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Objective 1: Develop Multi-Disciplinary, Multi-Institutional Training Teams. Completed year one of the project (2003).

Objective 2: Develop a Two-Day Comprehensive Training Program for Field Personnel.
After the in-person meeting of the state teams in January 2004 various participants began developing the modules for the two day training. Eight modules were written with the following titles: The certification process in brief, The Farm Plan, Seeds, annual transplants and planting stock, Soil quality and fertility management, Crop Pest, weed and disease management, Maintaining organic integrity, Handling and Processing and Livestock.

Objective 3: Deliver Training to Field Personnel. The third objective is to deliver the training program to at least 125 individuals who work directly with farmers. The first training that was conducted in July, 2004 was a pilot training held in Fort Pierce, Florida. A total of 36 participants were involved in the training not including the members of the training teams from each state. The objective of this training was to test seven of the eight modules that were developed prior to the training (the livestock module was completed after the pilot training and tested in the Virgin Islands). Members of the teams from all three institutions participated in the training. Some presented the materials, while others evaluated and noted the areas of the training that appeared to be unclear to the participants. The pilot training was video taped so that it could be evaluated at a later date. Evaluation tools that were developed by a graduate student from the University of Florida was used at the training. One tool evaluated changes in knowledge and expertise of field personnel through a pre- and post-test. The test evaluated changes in knowledge and expertise in the regulations covering organic production in the United States. The pre-post test method is commonly used for measuring changes in knowledge, which is calculated as a percentage change in correct responses to the questions. Another evaluation tool used Likert-like scales to measure participants’ attitudes about (1) the importance of providing advice to organic or potential organic farmers and (2) their confidence in their ability to do so. Participants responded to the Likert-like scales before and after the training. Changes in composite raw scores pre- and post-training will provided a measure of change in attitude and confidence on the part of participants.

After the pilot training in July, team members at the University of Florida made changes in the modules based on observations and suggestions made after the pilot training. The changes were made though December, 2004. During this time, the livestock module was developed.

Trainings have been scheduled in the Virgin Islands in April, 2005 and in Florida, for July 2005.

Objective 4: Finalization of Training Curriculum Distributed through NCAT’s ATTRA Project. This phase of the project will be completed by December, 2005, after all of the trainings have been conducted that have been outlined in the research project. The materials shall be made available through ATTRA and the websites of the institutions involved in the development of the training modules.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

In 2004, the project completed the development of eight modules that will be used in five additional trainings in three states in 2005. Thirty-six partipants attended the two day pilot training in Fort Pierce, Florida. Evaluation tools used in the pilot training indicated a high level of knowledge gained from the training using pre- and post test evalutions. We anticipate that evaluations conducted during the upcoming trainings will follow this trend in significant gains in knowledge by the participants.

A total of five more trainings will be conducted in Florida, Kentucky and the Virgin Islands in 2005. Copies of all training materials developed in this project will be made available upon completion of the trainings outlined in the project proposal.