PSA Working Committee 3 Farm Review

PSA Working Committee 3 – Farm Review September 20, 2011 2PM EST Meeting Notes

Attendance: Blakely, Bob; Crowley, Cecilia; Giclas, Hank; Haskins, Cynthia; Lowell, Karen L.; Kiger, Luana; Mills, Laura G; Baumgartner, JoAnn; Weddle, Kami S.; Danyluk, Michelle; Schneider, Keith; Wall, Gretchen; Bihn, Betsy

WC#3 Focus: Farm Review Special emphasis on Co-Management and NOP related issues

Summation of Discussions to Date

3.1. Land History

 Land use history is important.  The prior use should be known, documented, and evaluated for potential risk.  The evaluation should be documented along with any mitigation or corrective actions taken to reduce identified potential risk(s).  It is the grower’s responsibility to determine what mitigation measures to utilize and if none are available or acceptable to remediate the land, the grower should not plant crops on the land or an alternative crop should be selected based on its lack of susceptibility to the particular risk.  Impact of Flooding (not yet discussed)  Specific identification of risks that could exist from land use

A. Chemical 1. Heavy metals o Sediment basins 2. Petrochemicals 3. Solvents 4. Radiation 5. Pesticides 6. Industrial run-off 7. Landfill waste 8. Municipal Biosolids o Human & Animal 9. Herbicides 10. Synthetic/Non-Synthetic fertilizers

B. Biological 1. Animal waste (Is this different from manure?) 2. Biosolids (Human & Animal) 3. Manure (need definition, WC 4 will have definitions out shortly from their 9/16 meeting for manure, compost, and soil amendments) 4. Wildlife Fecal Contamination (covered in WC 4 extensively) 5. Grazing history (fecal contamination) 6. Hobby farming 7. Crop rotation (rotating to crops to mitigate phosphorous accumulation from grazing was cited) 8. Green waste

C. Physical 1. Glass 2. Waste 3. Rock (likely if mechanically harvesting) 4. Green waste (often has glass) 5. Nails 6. Plastics/metal from irrigation system 7. Strapping

3.2. Adjacent Land Use

Please submit initial thoughts for this section for our next call.

Ideas for how to approach teaching/training/refinement of ideas

The WC suggested the use of “scenarios” to further refine these tenets. Committee members offered previous experience using scenarios as part of the educational curriculum to keep participants engaged noting: scenarios provided in curriculum gave growers an idea of risks that may exist and what action was taken to mitigate them

It was decided that an exhaustive list of all scenarios was not necessary; instead creation of a small set of scenarios which may apply to a wide variety of situations would be helpful (generalized). Scenario should include biological, chemical, physical hazards that exist in the evaluation of land used for:

 Seasonal crops  Annual crops  Perennial crops  Tree crops  Organic crops  Urban farming (school gardens, conversion of desert properties)  Conversion from livestock operation to fresh produce  Flood plain areas Meeting Details - The next call date and time was established. West coast participants were in agreement that the earlier times (8AM Pacific) work with their schedules. - The next call is scheduled for October 11, 2011 at 11AM EDT. - Future tentative call dates include: Nov. 1, Nov. 22, Dec. 13 - The Google Site is available for use by the committee, log-on instructions will be re-sent in case there is interest to load resources onto the site for future use.

Action Items:

- Please submit your comments and additions to the list of risks in part A-C (chemical, biological, physical) above AND any beginning thoughts for Adjacent Land Use to Gretchen Wall ([email protected]) or Hank Giclas ([email protected])