Our food safety technical assistance program can help you incorporate basic food safety practices into your farm. We offer support designing food safety plans, provide on-farm risk assessments, and if you are already scaled to distribute wholesale, we offer step-by-step guidance on obtaining a USDA GAP Certification. Throughout the year, we also provide a variety of workshops that help explain the complex world of food safety.
What We Offer
On-Farm Risk Assessments
A member of our food safety team will help you identify any food safety risks. The consultant will suggest appropriate mitigation measures to bring your operation into compliance with food safety best practices.
Food Safety Plans
Our team works closely with farms to help translate, update, and personalize Food Safety Plans depending on the farm’s goals: employee training, complying with a buyer request, or getting ready for a GAP audit.
GAP Certification Preparation
We provide support through every step of the GAP certification process. Before audit day, we will also perform a mock audit, help you get all the documentation you need, and otherwise make sure you are 100% prepared!
Complete the online registration form to request our FREE technical assistance services — the only eligibility requirement is that you are a CFSA member! Memberships are available to farmers at $40/year. If the fee presents a hardship, please contact us. Registrations are reviewed on a rolling basis, with spaces open year-round based on staff availability. We look forward to working with you!
About Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Certification
If you have decided it is the right time for your farm to go through the USDA GAP Audit process, allot at least 2-3 months for preparation. Check the links to the right for all the initial steps you’ll need to take. Having our team by your side as you go through this process is really invaluable. Use our staff expertise to help ease this process!
- Choose and apply for your audit date early in the year! You have to demonstrate harvest on audit day, so choose a date you will have the crop you want on your certificate ready to harvest.
- Apply for the NC or SC cost share! Do this early as well, states tend to run out of money before the end of the year, so you want to get your name on the list. Financial help is only available your first and second year of certification.
- Fill out the SC-430 if it is your first year of certification. The USDA must have processed this form and assigned your farm and billing number before the auditor (from NCDA) will come to the farm for an audit.
- Educate yourself on GAP requirements. See CFSA’s educational offerings, attend a PSA Grower training, or find some other source of formal GAP training. One person on your farm must have formal GAP training prior to the audit. Also, familiarize yourself with the USDA GAP rulebook (“the Standard”).
Frequently Asked Questions about GAP Certification:
The short answer is that you should get GAP certified when you have a buyer that you want to work with, requiring that you have the GAP certification before they will buy from you.
The longer answer has to do with the costs of a GAP audit. GAP certification is NOT cheap. Even though you will receive a cost share that covers most of your GAP audit cost expenses your first year of audit, you have to remember that the assistance drops precipitously the second year, and then you are on your own to cover the costs of GAP certification alone. Approach this decision as you would with any other decision about making a business investment. You want to make a sufficient amount of wholesale sales in your first year of certification to justify the cost of the audit the second year. This requires a strong relationship with a wholesale buyer, and adequate volume of a needed commodity.
The auditor will charge $115 an hour for their audit services. This includes travel time, on-farm time, and office time. On top of the auditor from your state department of agriculture, the USDA will also charge for the review and processing of your certification, at the same rate of $115/hour. The USDA has routinely been charging for three hours of time for their part in the audit. It is harder to estimate what your department of agriculture auditor will charge because travel times vary, and the time spent on the farm also varies. GAP certification costs average about $1200/year. And this is an annual charge. Since this is an average, some farms come out much less, and others pay more than this. Average on-farm time for the audit is three hours. When the auditor sends an agenda (a few days prior to your audit), they will include the estimated costs of your audit. One last important point. You will receive two bills after your audit. One will come from the state department of agriculture, and the other from the USDA. Make sure you receive both and pay them promptly or you could be putting your certification at risk.
CFSA’s policy team is currently advocating for increased funding for farms getting GAP certified. In order to help our efforts, you can report the cost of your audits to our food safety team. The more data we have, the better case we can make for better funding!
GFSI stands for Global Food Safety Initiative. Just as it sounds, this is a globally recognized food safety rulebook. Some GAP certification programs are aligned–or benchmarked– with this rulebook and others are not. Of the USDA standards, only the Harmonized GAP Plus Standard is GFSI benchmarked. All other GFSI Standards are property of private companies offering audit services.
This Standard is an older version of USDA’s food safety auditing program. It is still being used, and you can still be audited under this standard. We recommend that you use the Harmonized GAP Standard as this is where the industry is headed, but it is not required.
In 2011, industry stakeholders got together and tried to reduce “audit fatigue.” This term describes the fact that farmers were asked by different buyers to be audited under different auditing rulebooks. Some farmers had to do several audits a year in order to comply with their different buyer requirements. The industry worked together to “harmonize” or bring the different standards together into one standard that would work for all certifying bodies and all farms. The result was the Harmonized Standard. The USDA has taken that Standard, altered it only slightly, and developed an auditing program for it. Any buyer that accepts the Harmonized Standard will accept the USDA’s Harmonized Standard.
About the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)
FSMA became law in 2011, and it made sweeping changes to how the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the U.S. food supply. It gives FDA authority over some produce farming, and added new requirements for many businesses that make or handle food.
CFSA’s Interactive FSMA Guide, developed in partnership with the Local Food Safety Collaborative, guides farmers through a series to questions to help them determine whether their farm or business is affected by federal food safety rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act and if so, how it is affected. Designed for use by small-scale US farms, farm cooperatives, produce packing houses, food hubs, food manufacturers, food distributors, on-farm food processors, and other food businesses serving markets for local and regional foods.
Review the Interactive FSMA GuideCFSA’s FSMA Produce Rule Flowchart guides farmers through a series to questions to help them determine whether their farm or food business is affected specifically by FSMA rules on the production and handling of produce, and if so, how.
Review the FSMA Produce Rule FlowchartEssential CFSA Food Safety Resources & Manuals
Good Manufacturing Practices for Low-Risk Foods Manual
The FSMA Good Manufacturing Practices for Low-Risk Foods: A Guide for Small-Scale Farms and Food Businesses manual, produced by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, was developed to be a resource for small and … Read more
Good Agricultural Practices Manual & Instructional Videos
Since 2011, the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) has worked with farmers, researchers, state and federal government agencies, technology companies, other sustainable agriculture organizations, and produce buyers to evaluate, quantify, … Read more
USDA Harmonized GAP Handbook and Recordkeeping Templates
The Farmer’s Handbook for the USDA Harmonized GAP Standard, produced by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association in 2024, is intended to assist small and mid-scale produce operations in preparing to … Read more
On-Farm Infrastructure Toolkit
Produced by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems’ NC Growing Together Project, this On-Farm Infrastructure Toolkit was created to address barriers, such as postharvest … Read more
Recent Food Safety Resources
Good Manufacturing Practices for Low-Risk Foods Manual
The FSMA Good Manufacturing Practices for Low-Risk Foods: A Guide for Small-Scale Farms and Food Businesses manual, produced by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, was developed to be a resource for small…Keep Reading
Post-Hurricane Helene Farm Food Safety
The following food safety guidelines were written for farms experiencing flooding and other severe weather. Guidelines in italics are specific to farms with GAP certification. Direct Technical Assistance: Documentation…Keep Reading
USDA Harmonized GAP Handbook and Recordkeeping Templates
The Farmer’s Handbook for the USDA Harmonized GAP Standard, produced by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association in 2024, is intended to assist small and mid-scale produce operations in preparing…Keep Reading
Farm Disaster Preparedness & Recovery Resources
The last thing you need to worry about when a hurricane, winter storm, or other extreme weather event is coming is where to look for help. While we’ll leave…Keep Reading
Page content last reviewed and updated 8/13/2026.
