USDA GroupGAP program marks one yearBy Matt Ernst, independent writer

April marks one year since the USDA Agricultural Marketing Ser-vice formally launched GroupGAP, which allows groups of fruit and vegetable growers to obtain USDA GAP certification. The program is aimed to benefit producers who, by themselves, may have found it neither feasible nor cost-effective to obtain GAP certification for fruits and vegetables.

GroupGAP allows any group of producers or supply chain partners (such as food hubs or co-ops) to comply with food retailer require-ments for on-farm food safety certification. Members of the group identify the food safety needs of their buyers, then develop food safety practices, documentation and an internal audit system. The USDA-AMS Specialty Crops Division then completes an external audit of the group.

A group of Amish growers around Rich Hill, Mo., last August were the first group in the country to obtain GroupGAP certification. They are affiliated with Good Natured Family Farms, a food hub in the Kansas City area and the site of the original USDA pilot program for GroupGAP.

GroupGAP is also beneficial to farmers selling through Ohio’s pro-duce auctions, according to Brad Bergefurd, an Ohio State Univer-sity extension educator in Scioto County and horticulture specialist at the OSU South Centers in Piketon.

One of the big benefits of GroupGAP, according to USDA, is that costs of certification may be spread out across many group mem-bers. The initial GroupGAP application fee this year to USDA is $736. The on-site audit is an additional cost and depends on the number of farms that must be inspected. That cost could range from around $1,000 for smaller groups, to several thousand dollars for

What’s insideRoadside Markets ............. 2 Marketing quiz .................. 3

Coming upMarch 30 - University of Illi-nois Extension Small Farms Webinar - Soil Management for High Tunnels. Noon, Central time. For more infor-mation, click here.

March 31 and April 7 - MarketReady Marketing Basics Training, at the Campbell County Exten-sion Office, 3500 Alexandria Pike, Highland Heights, KY 41076. Training will be offered from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. EDT on both dates; topics vary. For more infor-mation, click here.

April 18 - Greenhouse Tomato Production Field Day, 10 a.m.-noon EDT. See Page 4 for details.

April 20 - Ohio Direct Marketing Team Webinar: Are You Still Accepting Cash in a Digital World? Noon, Eastern time. Brought to you by The Ohio State University. For details and to register, click here.

March 2017

Brett Wolff, EditorChristy Cassady, Editor/Designer

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much larger groups. The audits are charged at an hourly rate of $92.

That can mean a big cost savings for growers to obtain a USDA GAP certification. A group of 20 growers, for example, would pay less than $40 each for the application, with an audit cost per grower likely to fall in the $150 range. That’s a substantial savings compared to the cost of a full third-party farm audit.

The exact cost of the audit, of course, will depend on the size of the group. “External producer audits will be performed on, at a minimum, the square root of the number of members rounded to the next whole number plus any centralized facility (if applicable),” according to USDA information on GroupGAP. The auditors try to schedule audits together to limit the amount of travel time, which impacts the final cost.

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Buyer food safety requirements are extremely im-portant for growers selling through produce auc-tions. For example, the Lincoln County Produce Auction in Kentucky has an internal food safety plan in place, and its facilities are audited for food safety. Similar measures are in place at the Fair-view Produce Auction and other auctions in Ken-tucky and surrounding states.

Auctions also provide information to buyers about growers that have third-party GAP certifica-tion, according to Lloyd Schrock, Lincoln County Produce Auction manager. “We have traceability stickers on every box that goes through the auc-tion,” he explained at this year’s Kentucky Fruit and Vegetable Conference in Lexington. “We do a different color traceability sticker on the ones that are third-party audited.”

More information about GroupGAP is available on the AMS website at https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/auditing/groupgap.

On March 16th, the Center for Crop Diversification was privileged to be on the program for a Bowling Green-based update and training for Farm Bureau Roadside Farm Market members. Topics included agritourism, principles of good roadside signs, updates on considerations and priorities at Farm Bureau, and a tour of the state-of-the-art facilities at Chaney’s Dairy Barn.

Click here to view a brief recorded interview with program coordinator Fran McCall — including details of how and when you can become a Certified Roadside Market.

Follow the program on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KYRoadsideFarmMarkets/?hc_ref=SEARCH.

To find Certified Roadside Farm Markets in your area, go here: https://www.kyfb.com/federation/roadside-farm-markets/.

Farm Bureau Roadside Market Program

Participants in the update and training for Farm Bureau Roadside Farm Market members in Bowling Green toured Chaney’s Dairy Barn, above.

Photos by Brett Wolff

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E-commerce workshops will be offered in TennesseeFrom Marketing and Communications Services, University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture

The University of Tennessee Center for Profitable Agriculture will conduct “E-commerce for Direct Farm Marketers” workshops in Memphis on April 18th and in Jonesborough on May 9th.

The e-commerce workshops are designed to give direct marketing farms and agritourism operations an overview of the basic concepts and options for selling products online. The workshops provide information on software options for online farmers markets, online marketplaces, social media platforms, business websites, and event ticket sales. The workshops will feature presentations from direct marketing enterprises in Tennessee that use e-commerce to market their products and improve their operating efficiencies.

“Several e-commerce software options are designed specifically for the needs of direct farm marketers, are easy to implement and use, and are economically priced. Producers do not need extensive knowledge in computer programming to incorporate e-commerce into their marketing strategy,” said Chuck Grigsby, from the Center for Profitable Agriculture.

A recent study conducted by the Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen estimates that online grocery sales could rise from their current levels of approximately 4 percent to account for as much as 25 percent of total food and beverage sales by 2025.

Both workshops will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. local time. Registration is required for the Memphis workshop by April 13th, and for the Jonesborough workshop by May 4th. Pre-registration and pre-payment of $20 per person per event is required. Lunch will be provided. Workshop location information will be emailed to registered participants the week prior to the workshops. Registration is available online at https://tiny.utk.edu/ecommerce.

For more information about the workshops, click here.

Marketing Quiz:A car is travelling at 60 miles per hour. How many seconds does the driver have to read a sign leading to your farm — assuming it is legible at 100 feet?

Which color combination is easiest to read?a) black letters on yellow backgroundb) red letters on green backgroundc) green letters on blue backgroundd) white letters on black background

How tall should letters on a sign be to ensure that someone can view them from 200 feet away?a) 2 inchesb) 20 inchesc) 40 inchesd) 60 inches

No, these aren’t questions designed to dredge up bad memories of high school algebra or art class. In fact, put that calculator away because all the answers to these questions and more are available in the sharp, smart publication Creating Signage that Sells available from the University of Tennessee Extension.

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“Before You Plant” webinar recordings now on CCD website

If you missed the Center for Crop Diversification’s two-part webinar series earlier this month entitled “What to Think About Before You Plant,” recordings are now available at http://www.uky.edu/ccd/marketing/general-resources/byp. Speakers for the first webinar, which focused on direct markets, were Dr. Tim Woods of the University of Kentucky’s Department of Agricultural Economics, and James Cochran, Farmers Market Support Program Manager for Community Farm Alliance. The second webinar, on large and commercial markets, featured speakers Brett Wolff of the CCD, and John Hendrickson, program manager for fresh market vegetables and food systems at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hendrickson helped develop Veggie Compass, a tool to help diversified vegetable growers measure profitability by crop and market channel. He also operates his own small-scale vegetable farm and sells primarily to wholesale markets.

Other resources on the web page include the What to Think About Before You Plant publication, and Dr. Woods’ PowerPoint presentation on the topic. Be sure to check out all of the resources available on the CCD website at www.uky.edu/CCD.

Greenhouse tomato field day April 18th

A greenhouse tomato production field day will be held from 10 a.m. to noon EDT on April 18th at Brent and Rhonda Cornett’s, 6831 McWhorter Road, London KY 40741. Speakers will be Dr. Shubin Saha and Extension Associate Steve Berberich of the UK Department of Horticulture, as well as the Cornetts. For more information, click here. The field day is funded in part by the Kentucky Horticulture Council through a grant from the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund.

eOrganic webinars coming up sooneOrganic is hosting several webinars of interest to organic growers in late March and April. These include Using Biofungicides, Biostimulants and Biofertilizers to Boost Crop Productivity and help Manage Vegetable Diseases, on March 30th; Taking Stock of Organic Research Investments, on April 6th, and Use of High Glucosinolate Mustard as an Organic Biofumigant in Vegetable Crops, on April 11th. Each of the webinars will take place at 2 p.m. Eastern time. For details about the webinars and registration information, please visit http://articles.extension.org/pages/25242/webinars-by-eorganic.