Q: How do you ensure what you grow is safe for me and my family to eat?
A: My family and I do many different things to ensure what we produce is safe, wholesome, nutritious and tastes good. We eat the food that comes out of our fields, so we take food safety seriously. We follow strict food safety guidelines on what we can and cannot use when it comes to protecting our crops from damaging insects and plant diseases. When it comes to water quality and conserving soil, our most valuable resources, we use no-till practices. We also plant cover crops on all our acres for weed control and to help keep nutrients in place for the crops we grow. Produce can travel many miles and pass through different hands, so it’s always wise to thoroughly wash what we eat before we eat.
Ida Hand grows soybeans, corn and strawberries with her family on their farm near Fillmore in Montgomery County.
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