Nearly 150 4-H youths from three counties covered the ag site at Southwestern Community College (SWCC) campus in Creston to complete the annual Food Safety Quality Assurance (FSQA) training.
The goal of this program is to help youths and their parents better understand what they can do to produce the safest food possible.
Iowa 4-H’ers produce more than 17 million pounds of meat each year, which all goes into the American food supply. All 4-Hers across the state of Iowa who plan to exhibit “food” animals at the county and/or state level are required to become FSQA certified each year.
For the past three years, Clarke County has formed a partnership with both Adair and Union counties to host two FSQA trainings for the 4-Hers.
The training is organized by the county 4-H staff, which consists of Haley Jones in Union County, Donna Wallace in Adair County and Jennifer Miler in Clarke County.
They collaborate with several SWCC students and the Union County youth beef team each year to help facilitate training. They lead all five stations, covering the “Good Production Practices,” which are determined at the state 4-H level, a nutrition station and a farm tour.
The practices covered this year included biosecurity, ethics and feed additives. The 4-Hers get the opportunity to rotate from station to station, participate in a hands on activity at each station and go on a farm tour.