Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the large California shippers also operate in Arizona. However, when the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a call for comments on the idea of having
a national marketing agreement or marketing order, many smaller producers protested
due, in part, to the expected high costs of complying with such an agreement.
Consolidation in the produce industry means that any food safety problem that
affects one grower or shipper may affect a large number of consumers, and be more
likely to be detected. The capital-intensive bagged salad industry is particularly con-
centrated. In 1997, the top two fi rms accounted for 76% of the retail sales of bagged
salads, the top fi ve fi rms accounted for 88% of sales, and private label fi rms accounted
for 10% of sales (Calvin and others 2001). At the same time, large fi rms may have
the fi nancial resources and the volume of sales to adopt some of the food safety prac-
tices, which may be relatively expensive for smaller companies.
Government and Industry Response to Food Safety Problems
In the mid-1990s, outbreaks of foodborne illnesses linked to microbial contamination
of both domestic and imported produce focused attention on the potential for contami-
nation at the farm level. In 1996, E. coli O157 : H7 was linked to California lettuce
associated with farm-level contamination. This was in addition to the foodborne illness
outbreak linked to imported Guatemalan raspberries, also contaminated at the farm
level. The economic impacts of the outbreaks made it clear to the produce industry,
particularly those sectors associated with the contaminated product, that improved
food safety programs were necessary. The U.S. government also became more involved
in produce food safety at the farm level.
The appropriate regulatory approach to promote food safety depends on both the
type of product and the hazard. The government can either regulate the product or the
production process (Unnevehr and Jensen 2005). When monitoring the quality of
products is feasible, product standards are likely to be more effi cient than process
standards because they allow fi rms to meet the minimum quality or tolerance levels
but choose the least expensive method to do so. In addition, since the potential for
contamination may vary across farms, locking all growers into the same process
standard may not be appropriate. However, in instances when determining product
quality is diffi cult or very costly, requiring certain processes to be followed provides
an effective strategy for reducing product risk.
Two characteristics of fresh produce work against product standards for microbial
contamination. First, it is very hard to detect microbial contamination on produce. The
FDA product standard is zero tolerance for microbial contamination, but this is largely
unenforceable. Microbial contamination on produce can be diffi cult to detect. In con-
trast, testing for pesticide residues is relatively effi cient. If a fi eld is sprayed with too
much pesticide, any produce from that fi eld will turn up positive for excessive resi-
dues. Microbial contamination on produce can be at low levels and occur sporadically.
Only a small section of a fi eld, or even just one leaf of lettuce, may be contaminated,
and the chance of detecting that contaminant in random testing is low. Second, there
is no generally approved methodology for removing microbial contamination from
fresh produce, so the most effective strategy for reducing the risk of microbial con-
tamination is prevention. Until recently, the FDA had approved irradiation of fresh
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