Program areas at GSVA
Plant disease and pest management: the program is designed to help farmers to implement effective disease and pest management strategies to control emerging pests and diseases. Gas works collaboratively with local farm advisors and experts, universities and members to identify pest and disease trends and develop new and better methods of control.
Food safety projects:providing safe food for consumers is paramount for farmers and farming companies. Gsa supports and assists the farming community to find or develop and adhere to best practices, and to understand and comply with various federal, state and local regulations.
Gsa took all necessary steps to support the farming community in their efforts to protect its workforce. Gsa was part of a collaboration with monterey county health and agriculture officials to develop guidance for covid-19 prevention among farming and harvesting crews, which was the first in the nation and released on march 20, 2020. Soon after, cal-osha issued similar prevention guidance for farmers throughout the state.as the pandemic continued in 2021, gsa developed more ground-breaking worker protection programs that became a model for other agricultural regions. These include:1. Partnering with local hospitals to provide onsite covid-19 training for agricultural employees with a focus on proper prevention practices to follow both at work and at home. This evolved to providing onsite vaccine education sessions to address vaccine hesitancy among farm workers.2. Establishing quarantined housing where workers who have symptoms, test positive or were exposed to the virus can rest and/or recover with food and other necessities delivered each day. Local hospitals provide monitoring of individuals in quarantined housing with daily health checks. This program not only helps farm workers, but protects their families and housemates from the virus as well. 3. Developing an expedited covid-19 testing program, in conjunction with clinica de salud del valle de salinas (csvs), which provides faster results to better protect farm workers.4. Securing millions of face masks for farm workers.5. Developing mass vaccination clinics in partnership with csvs. These clinics have vaccinated tens of thousands of ag employees since they began in february 2021 and have received national recognition, including a clinic tour by the secretary of health and human services, xavier becerra.
Trade show: gsa members exhibit in the pavilion we hosted for united fresh show and for pma fresh summit. These pavilions served to strengthen member relations, as we handled all logistics of the show on our members' behalf and saved them money by sharing the booth space. Hosted pavilions are an added benefit of gsa membership.
Water quality and supply - gsa is committed to working collaboratively to continually improve water quality in our region.