Tag Archives: UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

UF/IFAS Selected to Lead Food Safety Education Program

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December 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has selected a UF/IFAS-run center for food safety training to coordinate similar facilities across the country.

Michelle Danyluk, photo courtesy of UF/IFAS

The USDA’s decision means the Southern Center for Food Safety Modernization Act Training will continue serving as the Lead Regional Coordination Center for such training, a role it has filled since 2015. The Southern Center is run by two food safety professors in the UF/IFAS food science and human nutrition department: Keith Schneider and Michelle Danyluk.

“We have a really good crew of people here that has allowed this to happen: a network of trainers and faculty members who have extensive connections in the food safety community, as well as with other institutions,” Schneider said.

Keith Schneider, photo courtesy of UF/IFAS

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was passed in 2011 to prevent the introduction of foodborne pathogens into the American food system. In 2015, the USDA joined with the FDA to establish the National Food Safety Training, Education, Extension, Outreach, and Technical Assistance Program and funded a national coordination center and four regional centers. UF/IFAS has served as the headquarters of the Southern Center for a decade. The center supports 13 states between Texas and Virginia. Partners include land-grant institutions and non-government and community-based organizations.

This year, NIFA awarded the Southern Center a $950,000 grant to continue training food safety educators. During this grant cycle, a three-year period, the center will focus on reaching underserved populations, including operators of small farms, socially disadvantaged farmers and farmers beginning their careers.

The center’s teaching model involves training trainers, including representatives from academia, state and local regulatory agencies, non-governmental organizations, commodity group associations and local food hubs. This approach creates a multiplier effect.

“Rather than trying to complete 100 trainings, we can train 10 trainers and reach 1,000 people and so on,” Schneider said. “And the more trainers we educate, the larger the audience we impact.”

Most of the curriculum focuses on two FSMA rules: the Produce Safety Rule and the Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule. The first established mandatory minimum standards related to agricultural water quality, employee health and hygiene, animals, biological soil amendments of animal origin, equipment, tools and buildings. The second requires food facilities to create a food safety plan that includes an analysis of hazards and risk-based preventive controls to minimize or prevent identified hazards.

“It’s all about being compliant with health-safety rules so growers can produce the quality crops we want and expect,” Schneider said.

ABOUT UF/IFAS
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries, and all Florida residents.

ifas.ufl.edu  |  @UF_IFAS

Ag Talk

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April 2020 FloridAgriculture e-Newsletter

Jack Payne
Jack Payne

By Jack Payne
[email protected]
@JackPayneIFAS

The Coronavirus doesn’t stop the need to feed. In fact, the run on supermarkets as I wrote this in mid-March demonstrates how demand for food spikes during a crisis.

This is a moment (maybe a months-long “moment”) for agriculture and agricultural science to shine. We have a wealth of experience as few other sectors do in navigating a crisis — natural disasters, climate variability, market fluctuations, freezes, diseases, pests and other threats.

Just as the food supply you deliver is not interrupted by the Coronavirus, neither is the science you rely upon to inform your decisions.

The women and men of UF/IFAS showed extraordinary effort in taking early action to keep the Coronavirus from sidelining science. Their beat-the-clock hustle ensured the continuity of agricultural science before restrictions on travel, public gatherings or even showing up at the office could threaten to shut down their work to sustain Florida agriculture.

KC Jeong & Samantha Wisely

One of the most extraordinary responses was the darn-near-instant transformation of teaching. Our instructors, administration and instructional technology professionals took classes attended by 6,000 students in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and put them all completely online in days. This keeps students on track to graduate on time and prevents gaps in the education they’ll need to be productive 21st century citizens.

These are 6,000 potential future employees. At the very least, they’re 6,000 present and future customers who will be ag ambassadors who can tell friends, family, co-workers, fellow worshippers and strangers where their food comes from.

Lauren Diepenbrock feared that as the movement of people seemingly became more restricted by the hour that her research team would be locked out of an experimental grove by the emergency. So she summoned them to report to the Citrus Research and Education Center by 7 a.m. and got 600 Valencia trees planted in a single day.

She said, “This is work we’ve promised the federal government we’d do to help our growers.” Citrus growers were in crisis long before the Coronavirus, so her research on HLB is too important to face delays caused by Coronavirus. Even a public health emergency didn’t shake her commitment to her pledge to the federal government – or to you.

Vanessa Campoverde showed the same hustle in Extension. When infections began to impact air travel, she jumped in the car and drove six hours from Miami to Live Oak for an important training she needed to help Miami-area producers. She also rushed to squeeze in Spanish-language training for workers who needed to keep their pesticide licenses from expiring during a potential shutdown.

Like so many other things right now, the way we’re delivering agricultural science may look and feel different. Some things don’t change at all, like our commitment to you. We’re still working for you so you can work to feed an anxious world.

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Session Update

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April 2020 e-Newsletter Session Update

The Florida Legislature wrapped up the only remaining business for the 2020 Legislative Session: passing a budget.  Unanimous votes in each chamber sent the largest budget ever to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Some general highlights of the $93.2 billion budget include more than $600 million in funding to improve water quality and Everglades projects, $500 million toward teacher pay raises, $100 million for the Florida Forever conservation program and $300 million to respond to the impacts of COVID-19.

Obviously, the effects of COVID-19 will have dramatic impacts on the state’s economy and could force the Legislature to revise the budget in a special session or dip into the $3.8 billion the state has in reserves.

Agriculture Budget Items Close Strong

UF/IFAS

At one point during session, it looked as if UF/IFAS would receive no funding for any of their budget requests as well as lose funding for several recurring projects that were funded in previous years.  But last-minute funding that was added when the Appropriations Chairs met over the weekend.

At the end of the day, the most important request for additional workload dollars was funded at $3.8 million, with $1.7 of that being recurring.  These funds allow UF/IFAS to carry out the essential research and Extension services that agriculture depends on.

The cuts to the existing programs were also restored, meaning that what began as a potential setback year became a significant step forward for UF/IFAS.

FDACS

As we reported last week, budget items for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) ended up much better than where they started. The Fresh From Florida program will be fully funded at $5.9 million.  The initial House proposal included a $3.7 million cut. The Rural and Family Lands Program will receive $8.7 million this year after being zeroed out in 2019.  The Office of Ag Water Policy also received funding for eight additional staff that will be integral to implementing provisions of SB 712 requiring BMP verifications.

Other areas of the FDACS budget were sufficiently funded.  Throughout session, there were several proposals to modify the department significantly and how it was funded, but in the end, they were not adopted.

Ask Gov. DeSantis to Sign SB 712: The Clean Waterways Act

This week, we sent out a “Call to Action” urging Gov. DeSantis to sign SB 712, the Clean Waterways Act. This legislation, as mentioned before, was a priority for Farm Bureau this year because it implements a comprehensive, science-based approach to restoring and protecting Florida’s water resources. If you have not done so already, please participate in sending Gov. DeSantis a letter urging him to sign this legislation into law. You can do so at the link below:

https://www.votervoice.net/BroadcastLinks/4jg4clJtSqNOj45I6Yf3MQ

COVID-19 Response

Leadership in the State of Florida is laser-focused on preventing the spread of and mitigating the impacts of Coronavirus, or COVID-19.

Gov. DeSantis has declared a state of emergency, urging all Floridians to avoid gatherings and practice social distancing. As a result, many businesses are closed or working remotely.

Among the many actions taken to mitigate this crisis and assist Floridians in navigating the new normal, Gov. DeSantis issued Executive Order 20-52, which authorized the Florida Department of Transportation to relieve hours of service requirements and the size and weight restrictions for divisible loads on any vehicles transporting emergency equipment, services, supplies and necessary agricultural commodities.

President Designate Releases Video

On Tuesday, March 17, Senate President-Designate Wilton Simpson released a message to Floridians on the importance of Florida agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic. President-Designate Simpson commended the farmers, ranchers and growers who have remained focused on feeding Floridians and Americans during this time.

Please take a moment to view and share the video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/1aPoLAriLLA

Wrap-up

At the close of the 2020 session, it’s clear that it has been a successful one for Florida Farm Bureau and our partners in the agricultural community.  Protecting the BMP program through additional credibility and additional research was a big victory in SB 712. That bill also effectively stopped a “Rights of Nature” movement that could have significantly increased frivolous lawsuits filed against Florida farms. We also worked to ensure that ag employers could verify employment eligibility through the I-9 process as well as the E-Verify system, helping to relieve additional burdens on our employers.

Successful outcomes in these areas were essential, and we appreciate the Legislature and our members for their hard work to make it happen.

We will continue to keep you updated over the coming weeks as the Governor takes action on bills and the budget and as we look forward to the election cycle.

Ag Talk

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Jack Payne

By Jack Payne
[email protected]
@JackPayneIFAS

I don’t have a problem with people saying agriculture is part of the source of the state’s water quality challenges. I do have a problem when people who know nothing about ag, drop the “part of.”

It’s bad for agriculture’s public image. It’s also bad science.

One way the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is trying to get past the finger-pointing and to set the record straight is by joining the Together Florida campaign. Its core message: Everyone is part of the water quality problem, so everyone needs to be part of the solution.

Nutrients that pollute our water can come from septic tanks, lawns, municipal wastewater systems and stormwater runoff as well as from farms. UF/IFAS and the Florida Farm Bureau belong to this coalition to seek an approach to protecting water quality that addresses all sources of pollutants, not one that singles you out.

For example, two of our water scientists, Mary Lusk and Andrea Albertin, are devoting outreach to educating the public about the harm done by leaky septic tanks.

Florida Sea Grant agent Betty Staugler and UF/IFAS Extension regional specialized water agent and Sea Grant affilate Lisa Krimsky synthesized the input of 75 scientists and last month released a state-of-the-science report on algae blooms. It lays out what we know and, importantly, what we don’t know, like “What is the role of P(hosphorus)?”

It also maps out a research agenda that calls for developing a way to separate the various sources of water pollution. It also calls for determining if practices on the farm – or in the city – will reduce blooms. In other words, let’s figure out what actually works before we mandate it.

No one is better positioned than UF/IFAS to plot a strategic course to find answers to water pollution questions. At the same time, we seek to engage policy makers by providing them with the best information available to help them make decisions now, not a decade from now when we have better science.

Many of you are operating out of the UF/IFAS Best Management Practices (BMP) playbook. With state support for public science, we can learn a lot more about how to tailor BMPs by geography, crop, soil type, weather conditions and more.

The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association (FFVA) deserves a lot of credit for taking the lead on Together Florida. The website includes tools for you to contact your local legislator to support clean water legislation based on science or calls for development of that science.

We help you fight nematodes, crop disease and drought. With the help of the Farm Bureau and FFVA, we’re helping you fight misinformation, too.

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Ag Talk

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Jack Payne

By Jack Payne
@JackPayneIFAS
[email protected]

You are always welcome on the University of Florida campus, but I hope you’ll consider coming to visit us this month. You’ll get a look at your future.

We’re bringing some of the best minds in the world here to help us determine how to keep you – and your children and grandchildren – in the food business. We won’t settle this in two days of events. All the more reason to talk about tomorrow today.

The Future of Food Forum on Jan. 15 aims to give us direction on what researchers and farmers should be doing now to bring innovation to Florida fields. International experts will share the podium with Florida producers.

For example, we’ll have a Gates Foundation executive and the Nigeria-based leader of a global tropical agriculture institute sharing the stage with the Farm Bureau’s own Women’s Leadership Committee chair, Sarah Carte. Another panel puts a Hillsborough County strawberry grower together with captains of agribusiness from companies such as Syngenta.

The next day, Jan. 16, the techies are up. We’ll host “Pathways Towards the Next Generation of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Florida.” We’ll explore how we can harness huge amounts of data to improve your crops, as well as what policies we’ll need to make that happen. We’ll assemble the state’s leading water policy experts to hear what needs to happen to keep the taps running on farms even as cities get bigger and thirstier.

I know you’ve got plenty to deal with in the here and now. But if you don’t start considering drones, artificial intelligence, robots and the like, you’ll be competing someday against growers who already are thinking about these things.

One could dismiss this as all talk if we at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences didn’t have the capacity to act on some of the vision that emerges. When we convene experts, we get A-listers. With UF/IFAS, Florida farmers have one of the best R&D shops anywhere on the planet.

You’re going to need it. Your grandparents or great-grandparents fed about 18 people when they ran the farm. Today, you feed 164. You can expect to be feeding even more as we add 2.5 billion more mouths to the planet by mid-century.

I don’t know how much harder you can work to keep up. You’re going to have to work smarter. We can help. Come to these campus events to get a glimpse of what lies ahead.

If you can’t make it, reconnect with the closest UF/IFAS research and education center or Extension office. But start planning for that future now.

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Leadership Development

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Of all the commodities we produce in Florida, the most important is leaders. People like John Hoblick, Brant Schirard, Adam Basford and Staci Sims are essential to the success of the other 300 commodities.

The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences invests so much in leadership development programs as a way to help every farmer, rancher, and forester. Not surprisingly, we need good leaders to help prepare other leaders. People like Christy Chiarelli.

Chiarelli started as director of the Wedgworth Leadership Institute for Agriculture and Natural Resources on June 3.

Chiarelli arrived in Gainesville in 2006 as a junior after serving as a National FFA Officer from Mississippi. She already knew she wanted a career in agriculture. One of the seminal experiences of her undergraduate career was an internship with the Florida Farm Bureau. It’s when she met John Hoblick. And it’s when she met Adam Basford, who was her supervisor and is now your director of state legislative affairs.

After earning her master’s degree while working for the UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education, she served as a program adviser for Class VIII of the Wedgworth Leadership Institute. Sims, who is now the Florida Farm Bureau general counsel, was a member of that class, and she and Chiarelli forged a strong relationship that continues today.

Chiarelli also made many Farm Bureau friends as a UF/IFAS advancement officer, which helped her raise $1.7 million for the institute she now leads. She’ll continue to rely on her Farm Bureau network to help her scout the state for rising talent who can become better equipped to lead their industries with Wedgworth training.

John, Brant (your vice president), Adam, and Staci say they still draw on lessons learned and relationships forged in 22 months (longer than most master’s degree programs) in Wedgworth.

President Hoblick says Wedgworth has been a “huge part of my foundation for leadership of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.” He also offers this endorsement: “The basic principles of leadership that do not get printed in textbooks come alive with this program. It’s a hands-on, practical approach in real-life situations that this program puts you through – and that’s big.”

Chiarelli is dedicated to helping you succeed. You can help her succeed by nominating someone for Class XI of the Wedgworth Leadership Institute by July 15. Visit www.wedgworthleadership.com or call Christy at 352-392-1038 for details.

She speaks the language of leadership. She learned it through two Gator degrees in agricultural education and communication within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. She further honed it in strengthening the connections between UF/IFAS and its supporters while raising millions of dollars for the science that drives Florida farming success.

Chiarelli also speaks the language of the ranch, the field and the grove. As a girl she helped her grandfather with his cows. She also bought and sold her own livestock, including market lambs and Brahman cattle. She spent years in FFA, rising to president of the Mississippi FFA Association and then getting elected as the Southern Region National FFA Vice President.

A change in Wedgworth leadership is a big deal. It has only happened one other time in the organization’s 40-year history. It’s a job Chiarelli has spent all that time preparing for, getting help along the way from FFA advisors, UF/IFAS faculty, the Farm Bureau and others.

It’s never too early to start looking for the next generation of talent. We’ll be keeping an eye on UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences students who intern with the Farm Bureau. Chiarelli may pass the leadership torch to one of them some day.

[email protected]
@JackPayneIFAS

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.