AMES, Iowa – The Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Visit Iowa Farms program will hold an Agritourism Destination Safety and Health Best Practices workshop Tuesday, Jan. 8, at the ISU Extension and Outreach Black Hawk County office in Waterloo.
Registration will start at 8 a.m. and the workshop will conclude by 4:15 p.m. It is free to attend but space is limited. Lunch, refreshments and course materials will be provided.
“We are excited to offer this workshop for agritourism destination owners to learn best practices to keep visitors and employees safe when on their farm,” said Kendra Meyer, program assistant in Value Added Agriculture with ISU Extension and Outreach. “Safety might not always be the first topic they think about when opening their farms to visitors and hiring employees, but it is certainly one of the most important.”
ISU Extension and Outreach experts will discuss best practice topics such as food, farm and consumer safety, understanding legal risks in agritourism, public play area safety, pesticide safety for agritourism destinations, protecting animals and humans from biosecurity risks, and farm emergency preparedness and planning.
Two participants at each workshop will be selected at random to receive a $300 stipend to use toward an agritourism-related safety improvement.
For more information visit www.visitiowafarms.org. Register by 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 4, by emailing visitiowafarms@iastate.edu or calling 515-294-9483.
The workshops are supported by the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (U54 OH007548), and through the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.