Safer veggies on the way?

With the E.coli outbreak from California spinach long past and the salmonella-contaminated tomato incident over, you might be wondering what’s happening on the farm to prevent another series of outbreaks such as we had this fall.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) held a public hearing earlier this month to discuss industry proposals to keep deadly pathogens out of produce grown in California–our nation’s fruit and veggie basket. Farmers and others from California’s leafy greens growing industry were there to propose a new system that would have growers set the standards and leave enforcement and inspection to the State. 

Consumers Union’s Elisa Odabashion was there to present our perspective. Odabashion cited three basic drawbacks to the proposal: first, that its Best Practice standards would be developed exclusively by industry representatives, behind closed doors; second, that participation is voluntary and wouldn’t cover all growers; and finally, that the program would use a certification and labeling system that could make safety a price-boosting sales tool rather than a minimum requirement for all products on the market. 

Consumers Union recognizes that the industry’s proposal includes some useful tools. However, we’re extremely concerned that packaging them in a private, voluntary program will ultimately lead to a separate but not equal system that provides safe food only to those who can afford to pay for it. Consumers Union believes that all consumers would be better protected if CDFA required and enforced the widely accepted standards known as Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for farms – a mandate that may require additional authority from the legislature and that many California policymakers seem prepared to support.

Oversight of the leafy greens industry, most of which is centered in California, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been spotty, at best. The FDA has neither imposed nor enforced already existing mandatory safety standards that apply to both farmers and processors across the country. It's time that the entire industry be subject to mandatory, uniform safety standards and that those practices be openly developed and enforced.