Farm Plan

Farm Plan

Farm Plan. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

Juli Ogden and her husband are cherry growers from the Wenatchee area. She was confused by a lot of the new food safety regulations and decided to clear the air so she came up with The Farm Plan.

OGDEN: The Farm Plan is a very simple system that makes food safety doable for farmers.

Like most other ag producers she was confused with trying to figure out things like Global Gap.

OGDEN: Global Gap is a program - it's not a law, it's not legislation, it's a program that was instigated in Germany and it requires that farmers prove they grow safe food. And the way that program is enforced is the retailers have been convinced that it's very important to them that they only buy certified food. So more and more retailers are insisting on anything they buy from a warehouse or directly from a farmer be certified safe food.

She developed the Farm Plan to cut through all the clutter of these plans.

OGDEN: My warehouse said you have to get your cherries certified safe through Global Gap or we're not selling your produce. And I had been hearing rumors from other farmers about how impossible Global Gap was. Just very difficult and the rules were horrible. So I went to a class my warehouse put on and I was given a 328-page to follow all the rules and the forms and do whatever it said. Too much! Just way too much when you have a busy life.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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