Prepared by Daniel Trachewsky
Dr. Eduardo Santos, Chilean Agricultural Attache to Washington, introduced several members of the FDA team to newly-elected Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and explained the purpose of the FDA mission.
This GAPs training program was organized under the rubric of the U.S.-Chile Collaborative Exchange on Food Safety. The Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN) coordinated the training with the support of Food Safety Initiative (FSI) staff and the staff of the Chilean Embassy in Washington, D.C.
The program was divided into three phases; 1) Setting the stage-This segment provided background on the Chilean produce industry, the trade and public health importance of food safety, and the Chilean legislative and regulatory framework; 2) Establishing basic definitions (e.g. safety versus quality), produce safety including pesticide registration and safety; and 3) Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). The majority of the training was in the area of GAPs.
The training program was well received and appreciated. Verbal feedback to Dr. Eduardo Santos, Chilean Agricultural Attache to Washington, from the Presidents of the Export Association of Chile, the Chilean Fruit Development Foundation (FDF) and Hortifrut was that this was one of the best courses that they had attended in the last ten years. Feedback from the evaluation forms distributed to the participants demonstrated that the overall evaluation of the course was midway between "mostly useful" and "very useful", with "very useful" (score of 5) being the highest score on a scale of 1 to 5. Eduardo Santos, Camille Brewer and Dan Trachewsky chaired the various sessions of the program.
Background
Providing one international GAPs training program is a CFSAN "A" list priority. Such training was also requested by the representatives of the Chilean Embassy in Washington during the Collaborative Exchange. FSI staff approached JIFSAN to coordinate the training including the development of the curriculum, speaker identification, and materials translation. The training program was developed based on the curriculum used by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in its fresh produce training held in Costa Rica in May 1999.
U.S. Speakers/Faculty
Camille Brewer, FDA
Marjorie Davidson, FDA
Arthur Miller, FDA
Juan Silva, Mississippi State University
Luis Suguiyama, EPA
Daniel Trachewsky, FDA/JIFSAN
Michael Villaneva, California Department of Food and Agriculture
Mark Walderhaug, FDA
Trevor Suslow, University of California at Davis (withdrew his participation at the
last moment due to his mother's death-his presentations were subsequently covered
by Juan Silva and Mike Villaneva)
Chilean Speakers/Faculty
Ricardo Adonis, FDF
Edmundo Araya, FDF
Ronald Brown, President, Export Association of Chile
Jaime Cornejo, Ministry of Health
Ana Maria Godoy, FDF
Julio Monreal, Ministry of Health
Rafael Parada, FDF
Jaime Campos Quiroga, Ministry of Agriculture
Gonzalos Rios, Ministry of Agriculture
Marcela Ruiz, Ministry of Agriculture
Eduardo Santos, Agricultural Attache, Embassy of Chile, Washington
Paulina Sepulveda, Ministry of Agriculture
Johanna Trombert, Hortifrut
Antonieta Urrutia, Ministry of Agriculture
Evaluation
On the last day of the training program the participants were given a prepared
evaluation form which was to be completed at the end of the training session. The
evaluation consisted of 25 separate questions, 21 of which were to be answered on a
numerical scale of 1 to 5, and four which required narrative answers. The
evaluation questions were in Spanish and the narrative answers were translated into
English by Angela Gill, an American University student on a summer internship
with Camille Brewer. Forty-five of the fifty invited participants completed the
evaluation. The narrative responses of only 38 of the 45 participants could be
translated since 7 of the respondents had illegible handwriting. From the evaluation
forms the mean or average overall evaluation of the course was 4.33 or midway
between "Mostly Useful" and "Very Useful". The Evaluation Scale was as follows:
1=Not Useful, 2=Somewhat Useful, 3=Useful, 4=Mostly Useful, 5=Very Useful
Monday morning was spent setting the stage with welcomes, introductions and discussing the impact of the safety and quality assurance of fresh produce on public health and international trade as well as Codex general principles of hygiene. This session received the lowest mean numerical score of all the sessions in the evaluation; it was 3.39 or about midway between "Useful' and "Mostly Useful".
During the afternoon on Monday, presentations were delivered on the international framework for risk analysis, the Chilean produce industry and the Chilean legislative and regulatory framework; as well as contrasting safety versus quality and a case study on raspberries. Here the mean numerical score on the evaluation was 3.98 or "Mostly Useful". Most of the presentations on Monday morning and afternoon were by Chilean speakers.
On Tuesday morning there were talks by a Chilean speaker on good growing and handling practices, followed by an overview of pesticide regulations in the United States and the U.S. Food Quality Protection Act by an EPA speaker, including quality assurance programs for the fresh produce industry by a speaker from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and the safe use and handling of pesticides and agrochemicals and their impacts on the worker and environment by a Chilean speaker. The mean numerical score in this session was 4.25 or somewhat above "Mostly Useful".
Most of Tuesday afternoon was spent by Mark Walderhaug discussing the U.S. FDA "Guide to Minimize Microbiological Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables". This four hour presentation was preceded by a half hour talk on worker hygiene and safety in Chile. The mean score for this afternoon session was 4.16 or slightly above "Mostly Useful".
The Wednesday morning session was given exclusively by Juan Silva of Mississippi State University and Mike Villaneva from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Much of their deliveries were to present what Trevor Suslow from the University of California at Davis would have presented had he not cancelled coming to the meeting the day before since his mother had passed away. We were fortunate in having Dr. Suslow's zip disk containing all of his slides with us on this trip. Dr. Silva also presented a case study on blueberry packing which included a video that he had made. The remainder of the morning was on a) good handling practices from field to cooling/shipping operations with an emphasis on field sanitation systems and good hygiene practices; b) good manufacturing practices:cooling systems, waxing and packing materials and; c) good agricultural practices for safe handling of fresh produce:new technologies in produce sanitizing. The mean score for this session was 3.95 or "Mostly Useful".
During the afternoon on Wednesday Arthur Miller gave a talk on research on microbiological hazards associated with fresh produce, while Marjorie Davidson made a presentation on communication techniques. These two talks were then followed by a panel discussion which focused on Chilean issues. The mean numerical score for this session was 3.76 or somewhat below "Mostly Useful".
On Thursday the participants made site visits to two packing facilities and one medical clinic for agricultural workers. The mean score for these site visits was 3.85 or slightly below "Mostly Useful".
The Friday morning session concluded the training program. Mike Villaneva made two presentations, one on pre-harvest quality control and the other on post-harvest perspectives. These were followed by Mark Walderhaug's presentation on FDA inspections and the course summary and wrap-up by Camille Brewer. The mean numerical score on the evaluation for this session was 4.50 or midway between "Mostly Useful" and "Very Useful'. This session received the highest score.
In answering a dozen questions about the course, the mean numerical scores to the
following questions were:
1=agree strongly
2=agree moderately
3=neither agree nor disagree
4=disagree moderately
5=disagree strongly
| Mean Score | ||
|---|---|---|
| a. | I had all my major questions answered in this course. | 2.22 |
| b. | I learned a lot about the issues covered in this course. | 1.93 |
| c. | Speakers seemed to listen carefully to the opinions and questions of the participants. | 1.40 |
| d. | Speakers were difficult to understand. | 3.96 |
| e. | Speakers did not deal with the issues. | 4.20 |
| f. | Speakers did not deal with the issues that concerned me. | 3.82 |
| g. | Speakers dealt with the hard questions during this course. | 2.22 |
| h. | Speakers understood my feelings about these issues. | 2.02 |
| i. | I gained a better appreciation of the strategies and solutions involved in areas that the course covered. | 1.49 |
| j. | Slides were clear and understandable during presentations. | 1.24 |
| k. | Arrangements for this course (selection of time and place, directions, speakers, materials) were well handled. | 1.36 |
| l. | I feel a need for more courses of this type. | 1.49 |
These data indicate that the participants thought that the course and its materials were well organized, that the speakers listened carefully to their opinions and questions – that they valued the active participation of the audience; that the speakers dealt with the issues and were easy to understand; and that they, the participants, gained a better appreciation of the strategies and solutions involved in areas that the course covered. The participants also felt quite strongly that they had a need for more courses of this type.
When the question was asked to list the two most important things you learned from the course, the responses that came up most often were: 1) the importance of awareness about sanitation and safety, 2) the importance about training, and 3) GAPs are key to achieve good steps for production and export of fresh produce.
When the question was asked what did you enjoy most about the workshop, the answers that were given most frequently were: 1) the interchange of ideas, knowledge and experience and 2) the excellent organization of the training program, of the presentations and of the materials handed out.
When asked the question, what did you least like about the course, the most frequent responses were; 1) some of the topics covered were too general in nature and not specific enough, 2) not enough time for some presentations, as well as for questions and interchange of opinions and, 3) the repetition of the same topics by several of the presenters.
When asked the question, how may you apply what you have learned in this course at your job, the answers most forthcoming were: 1) training producers and laborers in all aspects of food safety in the farm/field as well as in the packing sector and 2) the incorporation of GAPs.
Hypertext updated by dav 2001-JAN-26