Cohen Awarded USDA Grant for Farm to School Food Safety Program

Nancy Cohen, Professor and Head of the Department of Nutrition, has been awarded a four-year, $424,878 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Dr. Cohen received the award for a program titled “Food Safety from Farm and Garden to Preschool.” Funding for the grant comes as part of the USDA’s National Integrated Food Safety Initiative.

Farm to School programs, which link farmers with K-12 schools to increase children’s fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, are growing increasingly popular throughout the country. These programs support local agriculture and youth and promote Dietary Guidelines and Healthy People 2020 goals. However, fresh produce can also be a source of foodborne illness. As Farm to School programs expand into preschools, training is needed to ensure that the risk from fresh produce is minimized in this vulnerable group.

The Food Safety initiative proposed by Dr. Cohen centers on an innovative multistate, multi-institutional partnership, which includes university extension faculty and staff, county educators, local Farm to Preschool (F2P) programs, early child care educators and local agriculture organizations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Together, they will collaborate to identify and improve fresh produce safety knowledge and practices of foodservice staff, educators, and parent volunteers in F2P programs.

Dr. Cohen expects that through increased food safety knowledge and practices and increased adoption of safe and healthy Farm to Preschool programs, food safety risk will be reduced for over 100,000 preschool children who participate in expanding F2P programs in New England and nationwide.