Guidance document for good food safety practices to reduce (cross)contamination on farms

The number of food safety issues occurring in agricultural production at the farm level is on the rise. These issues include such problems as cross-contamination (allergens and other contaminants) due to bad growing and harvesting practices, undeclared ingredients, illegal dyes, incorrect pesticide use, improper use of chemicals, and others.

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Therefore, SSAFE, in collaboration with All Food Consulting, has developed a practical guide to provide farmers around the world with 47 useful and effective measures, based on scientific global best practices, to help reduce or eliminate on-farm (cross)contamination.

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This guidance, which has been successfully piloted in India, China and Turkey with a range of herb and spice farmers, should help significantly reduce the contamination and cross-contamination of agricultural products that could lead to a food safety issue.

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To help farmers in regions where literacy is a challenge the guidance is accompanied by clear set of simple pictorial instructions that clearly depict what should and should not be done in each case. To that end there are two version of the tool available for free download:

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• The full guidance document with pictorial instructions and a description why and how a farmer should apply the guidance
• A document with the pictorial instructions only