Farm food safety is an important topic whether or not your farm is covered under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). In response to numerous questions, UNH Cooperative Extension’s Food Safety Team has finalized three new factsheets. We anticipate all farms will benefit from them, but those needing to comply with FSMA, will find these especially useful. Please check them out!
- Worker health and hygiene
- Food contact surfaces and materials
- Cleaning and sanitizing food contact surfaces
Annual sales records required to demonstrate “qualified exempt” status under FSMA
Any farm that sells greater than $25,000 in produce (adjusted for inflation from 2011), is covered under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule. However, the majority of these farms in New Hampshire will be “qualified exempt”. In order to take advantage of the qualified exemption farmers will need to document their sales records and label their products with their business name and address. The NH Department of Agriculture Markets and Food has created a worksheet to help farmers document their eligibility. This worksheet can be found at:
https://www.agriculture.nh.gov/publications-forms/documents/qualified-exemption-worksheet.pdf
We recommend you fill out the worksheet even if your sales are less than $25,000 in produce so that you have documentation that you are not covered. If you are not sure if your farm is qualified exempt, check out the on-line resources at https://extension.unh.edu/programs/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma. Or feel free to contact members of our UNHCE FSMA Team.
Heather Bryant heather.bryant@unh.edu 603-787-6944
Mary Choate mary.choate@unh.edu 603-787-6944
Seth Wilner seth.wilner@unh.edu 603-787-6944
