School Garden Inspection
The Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA) will be providing outreach to school garden coordinators on food safety during the growing, harvesting, and post harvesting phases of school gardens. The NDA and Nevada Department of Education (NDE) have collaborated on establishing a resource document (School Garden Food Safety Guidelines) for school gardens with feedback provided from Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE), Washoe County Food Policy, Urban Roots, and the Nevada State Health Division. After garden coordinators are provided with the School Garden Food Safety Guidelines, an NDA representative will provide a School Garden Inspection. Local Health Authorities may require this inspection in order to serve garden produce to students and other potential consumers.
The School Garden Inspection will be used to verify a school
garden food safety plan is in place and documentation is available to confirm
the safety plan is being implemented.
The checklist will be signed by an NDA inspector and a copy will be
provided to the garden coordinator. The
food safety plan content will not be reviewed unless a Good Agriculture
Practices audit (a separate NDA program) is requested. The school garden checklist inspection will only
verify that a food safety plan is in place and no immediate food safety
concerns are observed. The checklist
inspection will only be provided for k-12th grade
schools. However, pre-k facilities will
still have the opportunity to receive the School Garden Food Safety Guidelines
and training to assist them with practicing food safety while in the garden.
If interested in receiving a School Garden Inspection please fill out the application and submit to Ashley Jeppson, ajeppson@agri.nv.gov (775-353-3675)
School Garden Inspection Application