Food Safety for Community and Home Gardens

How do we make sure we're being safe when growing food for others? While extra precautions exist for preventing the spread of COVID-19 from person-to-person, best practices for preventing foodborne illness are the same in whatever conditions were growing in. Watch the video below for an introduction on how to reduce the risk of food safety from your gardening practices, and use the additional resources to build your own food safety plan..

Apply What You Learned

As you watch through this video, consider the following questions:

• What food safety practices do you currently follow in your garden? What new practices should you implement?

• If you work in a community garden, do you currently have a food safety plan? If not, what resources will you use to create one?

• What are the greatest risks food safety risks in your garden?

Resources

• UMN Extension GAPs Education Program website

• MN Farm to School and garden safety manual (Olmsted county, 2012)

• UMASH Center agritourism with free signs for download

• Glo Germ to demonstrate proper hand washing with kids or adults

• Upcoming GAPs classes with UMN Extension

• Food safety plan template from UMN Extension (UMN)

• How to build a handwashing stand factsheet (UMN)

• COVID-19 plan template for community gardens and COVID FAQ for gardens and farms

• On-farm food safety and COVID-19 You-tube video playlists (UMN)