Take The Proactive Approach

While you are in the midst of the growing season, tending to planting and spray schedules, I’ve got two words for you: food safety. As you are scouting fields, ask yourself this: Am I doing all I can to keep my produce safe? In today’s day and age, you really can’t be too careful. The E. coli outbreak that occurred in spinach nearly two years ago is still on the minds of many — especially large corporate buyers. With the talk of Good Agricultural Practices, now voluntary, possibly becoming law, all growers may be impacted.

Right now, some large growers in California are spending thousands and thousands of dollars attempting to keep their fields as clean as possible and free of any wildlife. There is some skepticism that the extra efforts growers are taking in the area of food safety are in the best interests of the consumer and the environment.

For example, one food safety proposal includes removing vegetative areas from nearby fields. These vegetative or grassy areas often are used to reduce the runoff of crop protectants into nearby water. Hopefully, though, this issue will get ironed out sooner rather than later, so growers will not have loads rejected based on food safety mandates that have no grounding in sound science.

It isn’t just the buyers, however, who like the fact that many growers are going the extra mile for food safety. According to the California Leafy Green Handler Marketing Board, new research results indicate that consumers are very happy with the food safety efforts recently undertaken by California spinach and lettuce growers. Consumers like the fact that food safety programs and mandatory government audits are in place to protect public health.

Attention To Detail

With consumer attention on food safety, no matter how small your farming operation is, it goes without saying that you must keep Good Agricultural Practices at the forefront. Additional information on food safety is only a click away. Several Web sites can help you stay on track and reduce your risks.

For more information, check out the University of California-Davis’ site, http://ucgaps.ucdavis.edu. In addition, Cornell University’s Department of Food Sciences has a site that provides a Good Agricultural Practices network for education and training (www.gaps.cornell.edu).

And don’t forget to record all your farming activities. Hopefully your farm is never involved in a product recall, but you must always be prepared — just in case. It was just last year when I attended a conference and a speaker said, “If you didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen.”

Now those are some words to live by.

Food safety issues and Good Agricultural Practices are of the utmost importance, despite operation size.