The Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Visit Iowa Farms program will hold a Safety and Health Best Practices for Agritourism Businesses Workshop in Altoona on March 22.

Attendees will learn safety and health best practices to keep the public and employees safe while on the farm.

Registration will start at 8:15 a.m. and the workshops will conclude by 4:30 p.m. The workshops are free to attend but space is limited. Lunch, refreshments and course material will be provided.

“We are excited to offer this workshop for agritourism destination owners to learn best practices to keep visitors and employees safe when on their farm,” said Shannon Hoyle, program assistant in Value Added Agriculture with ISU Extension and Outreach. “Safety might not always be the first topic they think about when opening their farms to visitors and hiring employees, but it is certainly one of the most important.”

ISU Extension and Outreach experts will discuss food safety best practice topics such as food, farm and consumer, understanding legal risks in agritourism, public play area safety, pesticide safety for agritourism destinations, protecting animals and humans from biosecurity risks, and farm emergency preparedness and planning. Two participants at each workshop will be selected at random to receive a $300 stipend to use toward an agritourism-related safety improvement.

For more information visit www.visitiowafarms.org. Register by emailing visitiowafarms@iastate.edu or calling 515-294-9483.

The workshops are supported by the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (U54 OH007548), and through the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.