New Food Safety for School Garden Manual from Extension

The University of Minnesota Extension has released a new guide to food safety for school gardens.

Food Safety for School Gardens: Growing, handling and serving a safe harvest was developed with input and collaboration from many partners and collaborators, and we thank them for their considerable effort.

Who should use the manual? The manual is a guide for food safety in school gardens, and is intended for school garden coordinators, teachers, parents, volunteers or others who will be leading school gardens. However the GAPs concepts apply in all community, youth, donation, church or workplace gardens and gardeners and facilitators in these settings will also find the content useful. The manual is a comprehensive summary of the best practices to protect food safety when growing fresh produce, and includes lots of tips to ensure you have a safe, bountiful harvest.

If you are just starting a garden, or have had one for years, these concepts will apply and are an important part of any garden that is providing produce to other people. After reading the manual, use the included food safety plan template (available in a Google doc format for ease of working together as a team) to create your own garden food safety plan which will document your school's policies.

Find the Manual in PDF format attached to this email. You can also download the Manual as well as the food safety template (in Word, PDF or Google doc) and sample signage here in this Google folder. https://extension.umn.edu/farm-school/school-gardens#food-safety-in-the-garden-324862

If your school garden has specific food safety needs or questions, please reach out to Annalisa Hultberg, produce safety educator at hultb006@umn.edu. We have the capacity to host a limited number of food safety trainings for school gardens this winter or next spring, so please be in touch if your district would benefit from this.

The updated manual and training associated with it are supported by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Specialty Crop Block Grant program..