Food Protection Trends - November/December 2021 - 542

about temperature control in poultry processing increases
the concern of causing foodborne illness in consumers. This
result shows that when developing future education materials
for veteran farmers who raise poultry and eggs, the concept
of temperature control should be emphasized.
To better develop food safety education programs for veteran
farmers, their barriers and needs to food safety education
were identified. Table 4 presents recommendations for
the development of future food safety education programs.
Veteran farmers were asked their needs in food safety
information. They perceived a critical need for information
on soil amendments (55%), agricultural water (54%), and
postharvest handling and sanitation (50%). A recent review
on produce growers' food safety education also showed
that agricultural water and soil amendment topics were
not well understood among growers (8); thus, educators
and researchers should pay additional attention to these
topics in the development of future education programs for
veteran farmers.
Barriers to food safety education
The top two barriers to food safety education among
Indiana veteran farmers were (i) lack of time (45%) and (ii)
an overwhelming amount of information (32%). Time is
commonly identified as one of the major barriers for farmers
to learn and adopt new practices because of intense farm
production and lack of labor (8, 15, 25, 32, 38). Veteran
farmers also perceived the current education information as
overwhelming. There were two possible reasons. First, many
veteran farmers run small-scale farms (41), and they face
the twin challenges of making a profit and sustaining their
businesses. Food safety was just one of many challenges.
Therefore, they perceived food safety information as
burdensome rather than helpful. Second, the one-size-fitsall
model does not work well for veteran farmers. Most food
safety education resources for farmers are generalized and
standardized. However, some recommended practices are not
applicable because of different farm situations, especially for
small-scale veteran farmers who have diversified farms. This
complaint revealed the demand for developing audiencetargeted
education materials for veteran farmers based on
their farm scale and farm type.
Preferred information delivery formats
The top two preferred delivery formats were electronic
newsletters (59%) and in-person workshops (55%).
Electronic newsletters are environmentally friendly and
easy to use. Previous studies also revealed that Web-based
handouts, such as electronic newsletters, are one of the
preferred information delivery formats among farmers
(26, 35). Veteran farmers appreciate how newsletters can
be accessed at any time and at any location, allowing them
to learn at their own pace. In-person workshops provide
opportunities for veteran farmers to interact with their peers
542 Food Protection Trends November/December
and experts. This aligns with the findings of Ivey et al.'s study
(14) that farmers preferred to communicate via in-person
formats. In the present study, 88% of participants indicated
that the preferred format for in-person workshops was
the combination of lecture and hands-on demonstration.
Compared with in-person workshops, online workshops
allow veteran farmers to participate regardless of their
physical location and availability to travel. However, online
workshops were less preferred than in-person workshops
among veteran farmers. There could be several reasons for
this preference. First, unlike newsletters or recorded videos,
the online workshops are not self-paced. Second, veteran
farmers need to overcome many technical challenges,
including internet bandwidth and software accessibility.
Slow internet speed is a common challenge among farmers
in the United States, especially those in rural areas (40).
Third, online workshops cannot provide the same kind
of experiential learning and peer-to-peer interactions for
veteran farmers as in-person workshops. Some previous
studies showed that experiential learning enhances learners'
learning motivation and increases their knowledge retention
(5, 17, 36). Peer-to-peer interactions allow learners to gain
new knowledge and modify their existing thoughts and
knowledge by asking and answering questions or debating
with one another (18). These reasons also explain the
different preferred time lengths of online and in-person
workshops. Without experiential learning and peer-to-peer
interactions, veteran farmers did not want to spend more
than 1 h on online workshops, whereas they preferred inperson
workshops to be 2 to 4 h.
Both physical and psychological factors, such as
depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder,
increase the difficulty for military veterans to transition
back to civilian life and participate in normal social
activities (21, 39). Therefore, veteran farmers' preference
for attending events should be considered when developing
food safety educational interventions for this population.
In the present study, more participants felt comfortable
attending events in person (74%) than online (55%).
When attending in-person events, most participants (58%)
stated they could attend without a companion, whereas
many (42%) preferred to be accompanied by their spouse.
Table 2 presents participants' self-reported comfort level
for attending in-person events. They significantly felt
more comfortable having a one-on-one mentoring session
or meeting with smaller groups of veteran farmers than
meeting with smaller groups of nonveteran farmers (P <
0.05). They were least comfortable attending events with
large crowds (P < 0.05). This is common among people
with other challenges. Feng et al. (9) found that vulnerable
populations such as pregnant women and people with
diabetes had better learning outcomes when they learned
materials with a group of people like themselves.
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