From the desk of



The Michigan Produce Safety Team

March 17th, 2026

Spotlight 2026- Regenerative Agriculture and Produce Safety

Allissa Hern, Produce Safety Technician

Produce safety is a crucial aspect of growing fresh fruits and vegetables. When we talk about produce safety, we typically focus on bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can cause illness when consumed and how they can contaminate produce and food contact surfaces.

However, we understand that produce safety does not exist in a vacuum, and growers have many other aspects of farming to manage and goals they want to achieve. With a recent push for farms to practice regenerative agriculture, the MIOFPS Newsletter will shift our focus a bit this year. Each month, we will cover a topic associated with regenerative agriculture and how it applies to on-farm produce safety.

We hope to highlight the interconnectedness of both regenerative agriculture and produce safety, and present practices that can be applied to support your farms' regenerative agriculture goals. By understanding the potential risks associated with a new practice, and taking the proper preventative measures, farms can implement these practices while still maintaining safe produce and a positive food safety culture.

NRCS and the Regenerative Pilot Program

Allissa Hern, Produce Safety Technician

Regenerative Agriculture & Food Safety

Alison Buskirk, MSU Digital Media Designer

This episode features Carrie Fitzpatrick, a Food Safety Consultant through Wilber-Ellis, and Morgan Anderson, a Produce Safety Technician with the Ottawa Conservation District. Together, they break down what regenerative agriculture really means, address common misconceptions about balancing regenerative practices with food safety, and compare PRIMUS and GAP audit expectations with the requirements of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule.

Regenerative Agriculture & Produce Safety and Intersection

Nick Panicola, Produce Safety Technician

Regenerative agriculture is a term we read and hear about often these days, and has become the newest buzzword to articulate a shifting agricultural model that incorporates and takes into consideration the overall health of our agricultural lands and the surrounding ecosystem. While we continue to wrap our brains around this new regenerative model and find ways in which we can fit these new practices into our existing systems, it is important to think about what role, if any, produce safety has in all of this? Our newest Produce Safety Technician, Nick Panicola, explores the intersection between produce safety and regenerative agriculture and discusses the overlap between these two forms of thought, which ultimately overlap in their orientation and act symbiotically for an overall healthier farm and produce biosphere.

Submit Your Topic Now!

Allissa Hern, Produce Safety Technician

You can now submit a produce safety related question or newsletter topic to us on our wesite! If you're thinking about a topic, there is a good chance that others are too.

FSMA Ag Water Rule Support Line

Phil Tocco, MSU Extension Educator

Alison Buskirk, MSU Digital Media Designer

Produce Safety Alliance Grower Training

Training course and certificate for covered farms

Worker Training Texting Service:

Free and easy supplemental training for farms

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