Project Overview
This multidisciplinary project addressed food safety
and business development for Mississippi stakeholders including limited
resource producers, beginning farmers, small farms and ranches. The project aim
was to reduce accidental contamination of food products, develop business
skills, marketing strategies, and financial recordkeeping for agribusinesses to
mitigate financial, marketing, and legal risks. Five workshops (n=72
participants total) were held in Mississippi. Participants evaluated their
change in knowledge using a Likert scale pre- and post-workshop (1=Very
Little...5=Very much). On average across topics, participants had “Little”
knowledge before the workshop and “Much” knowledge after the workshop (n=59;
82% response rate). Using a Wilcoxon signed-rank test to evaluate change in
knowledge perception, participants had knowledge gains (p<0.01) indicating
workshop effectiveness. Financially, 46% of the attendees indicated that they
expect the practices they were going to adopt as a result of the workshops to
save them money. Fifty-nine percent also indicated that practice adoption would
result in higher sales, approximately 38% higher on average. A six-month
follow-up online survey was emailed to participants to assess practice
implementation. Of the respondents, 77-91% have adopted (to different degrees)
practices. Fourteen of the respondents (61%) indicated that implementing
practices has resulted in cost reductions and/or an increase in sales.
Number of Participants: 102
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
There are no promotional materials available for this project.
EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
There are no educational materials available for this project.
REPORTS & EVALUATIONS
There are no reports or evaluations available for this project.