IOWA LAKES PROFESSORS LEADS STATEWIDE TRAINING

An Iowa Lakes Community College professor recently wrapped up statewide training on food safety issues from the production standpoint.

Neal Williamsen, Associate Professor of Ag Production Technology, facilitated six educator seminars over the past two months.  He was assisted by various community college ag instructors representing the Ag Alliance of Iowa Community Colleges.

The training was made available through a $40,000 challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service division.  The seminar topic was "Enhancing Awareness and Teaching of Animal Production and Food Safety."  Participants included high school agriculture education instructors, student teachers, and community college faculty.

They were trained in principles of providing safe food products to the public through quality assurance measures and documenting practices at the production level.  Participants received an instructional compact disk which contained curriculum in these procedures.  They will use this information in their classroom to make students aware of safe practices from production to the finished food product.

Training sessions were held in Mason City, Emmetsburg, Indianola, Atlantic, Muscatine and Calmar.  Nearly 200 instructors benefited from this training. Additional training will be conducted at the Annual Ag Education Summer Conference held at Ames in June of 2004.