Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
first comprehensive reform of FDA food safety policy since the Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act was enacted in 1938. The most important policy change
contained in the FSMA is that it authorizes and mandates that the FDA pursue a
science-based and a risk-based food safety policy (Knutson and Ribera
2011
).
d.
Functional foods for healthier lifestyles
. According to the American Dietetic
Association, functional foods “include whole foods and fortified, enriched, or
enhanced foods that have a potentially beneficial effect on health when con-
sumed as part of a varied diet on a regular basis, at effective levels” (Hasler and
Brown
2009
). The functional food market was estimated at $ US 39 billion in
2010. There has been an overall change in the consumer's paradigm from using
functional foods as medicine and disease-prevention, to a more comprehensive
approach that views food as part of a healthy lifestyle in combination with exer-
cise and other health promoting activities. Palma and Jetter (
2012
) found that the
actual levels of consumption of fruits and vegetables were significantly lower
than the recommended intake levels of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
(DGA) released in 2010. Ribera et al. (
2012
) point out that if consumers were
to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables in response to the DGA
recommendations, the total supply of vegetables would have to increase 114 % to
satisfy the increased demand. They projected the majority of the increase in sup-
ply would come from horticulture production areas domestically and overseas.
e.
International trade agreements.
There has been an increase in the number of
trade agreements with several of them still pending negotiations. The worldwide
volume of agricultural products traded has had an average annual increase of
3.8 % since 1990. The total value of agricultural products exported worldwide
in 2010 was estimated at $ US 1.36 trillion (Anon
2011
). The USA has trade
agreements with Mexico and Canada (North American Free Trade Agreement),
Central America (Central America Free Trade Agreement), Australia, Bahrain,
Colombia, Chile, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Morocco, Oman, Peru, Singapore, and a
pending agreement with Panama.
Prospects
Large-scale vegetable production in open fields has evolved rapidly with improve-
ments in technologies and use of resources. The diversity of production is highly
dependent on weather conditions and crop input requirements. Commercial farmers
now efficiently select, integrate and monitor environmental variables and prehar-
vest production factors such as geographical location, weather conditions, soil and
water resources, new cultivars, seed technologies, precision seeding, transplanting,
grafting, irrigation systems, soil and canopy sensing technologies, fertilizer place-
ment, mechanical harvests, crop protection strategies and food safety management.
In fact more than 90,000 farmers in the world now follow standard field production
practices as part of the voluntary Global Good Agricultural Practice or GlobalGAP
