WSU Extension Offers Food Safety Symposium for Farmers at Tilth Conference

PULLMAN, Wash. – Assuring food safety requires vigilance at every step in the food chain from farm to fork, and it begins on the farm.

As part of the Washington Tilth Producers annual conference in Bellingham, Washington State University Extension, in cooperation with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, will present a daylong symposium for farmers on food safety and risk management. The symposium will feature two separate tracts, one focused on good agricultural practices for on-farm produce food safety and another on risk management involving value-added dairy products.

The symposium will be held on Friday, Nov. 7, from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at the Best Western Lakeway Inn, 714 Lakeway Drive in Bellingham. The Tilth Annual Conference will be held at the same location on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8 and 9.

The cost for the symposium is $50 per person and includes a box lunch. The cost for the Tilth Producers Conference is $165 for members and $210 for nonmembers and does not include the Friday symposium.

The symposium will feature an opening general session and concurrent sessions on the two information tracts.

The Good Agricultural Practices tract will offer science-based information from a multi-disciplinary group of WSU faculty as well as producer, market manager and regulatory perspectives on food safety. The focus will be on safety in produce production and sorting out sometime contradictory safe agricultural practice recommendations.

The Dairy Tract will focus on the food safety and risk management tools available to small dairy producers and those interested in diversifying farms into dairy production. WSDA and WSU food safety experts will cover on-farm food safety and risk management, crop insurance, business planning tools and resources, farm succession planning, energy alternatives for small farms and producer perspectives. Information will also be presented on herd health, value-added products and direct marketing.

For more information about the GAPs Tract contact Karen Killinger at 509-335-2970 or by email karen_killinger@wsu.edu.

For more information about the Dairy Tract contact Fred Berman at 360-676-2059 or by email at fberman@agr.wa.gov.

More information about both events and registration information is available at http://www.tilthproducers.org/specevents-08.htm#meeting.

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