Development and Deployment of the GAP-App: A Compliance and Safety Tracking Mobile App for Farmers and Food Hubs

Abstract: Smart Yields Inc. (SYI) and North Shore EVP (NSEVP) propose to begin research and development efforts to create a Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) smartphone app (GAP-App). GAP is an audit certification program created by the USDA and based on guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration, which verify that produce is produced, packed, handled, and stored as safely as possible to minimize food safety hazards (U.S. Department of Agriculture). GAP certification - verification of adherence to the FDA's hazard minimization recommendations - has increasingly become an unofficial requirement for retailers, making it difficult for small farmers to be able to sell their goods because of the rigor and cost required of traditional GAP certification. The GAP-App will facilitate the collection of food safety data on the farm and simplify the organization, management, and reporting of that data for USDA audit purposes.Background: Due in part to the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011 and in part to increasing concern about foodborne illnesses, GAP certification has increasingly become a requirement for retailers. Because GAP certification is becoming widely adopted, small agricultural businesses, regardless of their eligibility for exemptions, need it to be competitive. However, the rigor of collecting the data necessary and the upfront costs of the certification make it difficult to justify as significant investment is required to implement GAP and maintain annual certification (see Figure 1).The vast majority of farms in Hawai'i are smaller than 10 acres (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2014b), unlike the contiguous 48 US states where large farms now dominate crop production (MacDonald, Korb, & Hoppe, 2013). There are 7000 farms in Hawai'i, almost 4500 of which are less than 10 acres in size (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2014a). According to Farm Safe Hawai'i, the state's official listing of food-safety audit certifications, only 27 companies (producers, packers, wholesalers) have food safety certification completed by a third-party auditor (Food Safety Certified Farms in Hawai'i). With the FSMA compliance deadline set for 2017 for small businesses and 2018 for very small businesses, Oahu farmers and many other small farmers around the nation are ill prepared to meet these new federal requirements. It is predicted that up to 30% of the small farms in Hawai'i may go out of business due to the cost and administrative overhead required to secure GAP certification (Enright, 2016).Most farmers in Hawai'i are well-connected using cell phone networks throughout the day. Using the GAP-App farmers will be able to directly capture GAP data points into their smartphone or tablet as it happens. The data is immediately sent to a central data repository, thereby reducing their dependence on paper log sheets and the time and effort required to collect, organize, and maintain their food safety data.Farmers know that saving time means more money in their pockets. The majority of farmers that participated in a GroupGAP pilot study in Northern Michigan felt that appropriate technology could help them save time, but were unsure how to best assess what that technology would be for their unique situations. For example, when asked if technology could reduce the costs of GroupGAP, several farmers offered up the idea of a smartphone app to assist with record keeping and to keep labor costs down (Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems, 2015). Currently, most growers use handwritten paper records in the fields and onsite and then go back to their computers, update spreadsheets, and archive paper records.USDA SBIR Program AlignmentAreas:Development of the GAP-App responds to the crosscutting USDA SBIR Program Priority Area of Agriculturally-related Manufacturing Technology. Adoption of the GAP-App provides farmers an opportunity to increase efficiency on their farm by