Training family farmers on healthy and sustainable food

Abstract

The purpose of the project was to teach family agriculture producers, enrolled in the school
feeding program, about nutrition, food, handling and safe food production and to verify their
knowledge before and after the activity. Thirty-eight farmers from a cooperative near Manaus-
-Am., Responsible for the production of fruits and vegetables offered daily in school meals,
were trained. The training lasted 16 hours. It was started with the application of the questionnaire
determined as a pre-test. Issues such as healthy food choices, food hygiene and good
food handling practices and practice workshop were addressed. To evaluate the educational
intervention, the test with the same content of the pre-test was applied again. In the module
on healthy food choices, most co-workers answered correctly most of the questions both in
the pre- and post-test. Regarding food hygiene, there was a percentage of accuracy below the
estimate. Regarding the hygiene of the manipulators the percentage of accuracy was lower
at the beginning and at the end there was a significant increase. It was verified that after the
training there was a greater understanding about the manipulation of foods, basic concepts
and – mainly- in relation to healthy to change the methodology about food hygiene so that the
educational intervention is more effective.