Food safety discussion and coming Harkin bill

The fruit and vegetable industry advisory board met this afternoon and wrestled with its position on federal oversight of produce safety, Particularly, they considered how their position would play into the committee's recommendations to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. It seems USDA is just waiting for the opportunity to be more active in produce safety issues, whether through the use of their inspectors performing GAP/GHP audits or perhaps using the machinery of marketing agreements and marketing orders for food safety purposes.

During the afternoon's conversation, it was pointed out that Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., has been circulating draft language of a bill that seeks to legislate some aspects of produce safety - mostly, I understand, in relation to GAPs at farm level. Introduction could be just weeks away, some said. I haven't seen the draft of the bill.

The advisory committee should finish its deliberations and author its recommendations to Johanns by tomorrow morning. Not withstanding the lead of United and PMA, some members felt uneasy with the the terms of "mandatory" oversight, when it is unclear what mandatory oversight of produce safety might mean.

Meanwhile, the House Agriculture Committee is expected to post the horticultural subcommittee's work on the farm bill by tomorrow morning. The chairman's mark is expected later in the week, and that should be a big neon yellow sign as to what kind of farm bill the specialty crop industry might score for 2007.

Behavior change and food stamps

Can - or should - the USDA try to change behavior and the dietary choices of food stamp recipients?

The issue is timely. The ERS has a new study at this link that looks at the issue. The study is called, Could Behavioral Economics Help Improve Diet Quality for Nutrition Assistance Program Participants?

Also, Clarence Carter, deputy administrator of the food stamp program for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, gave a presentation before the fruit and vegetable industry advisory committee here in Washington about the $30 billion federal entitlement program. He noted about 60% of income eligible consumers participate.

As an aside, Carter observed the publicity about the "food stamp challenge, " where several Congress members tried to survive on the average benefit of $21 per week. Carter dismissed the publicity stunt, noting that the purpose of the food stamp program is to provide a supplement to food budgets, not be the sole source.
Carter resisted the idea that food stamp recepients eat worse than the general population. Obesity is a national problem, and it is visited on participants of the food stamp program as well as everyone else.

However, he noted that he expects some proposals in the 2007 farm bill may try to incentify food stamp purchases of fruits and vegetables.
Interestingly, Carter said that the electronic benefit distribution of food stamps allows tracking of what people spend on various food items. "I do believe we have the ability to analyze the purchases (of food stamps) compared to dietary guidelines, and that's something we may be able to get to as we move forward."

TK: Carter said that any attempt to allocate food stamp benefits based on food groups could cause a firefight that could engulf the program. It is clear it won't be easy to incentify food stamps to boost fruit and vegetable consumption. However, Carter's indication that data is available to analyze purchasing patterns of food stamp participants could be the first step in justifying the need for greater incentives for fruit and vegetable consumption in the food stamp program.

ERS spinach report

I saw Linda Calvin, economist with the USDA Economic Research Service, at today's meeting of the USDA fruit and vegetable industry advisory committee. It prompted me to think of the report on spinach she recently published in the USDA's Amber Waves online magazine. Here is the link.

Here are some excerpts:

Many factors could influence the number of outbreaks traced to produce, but two are particularly relevant to spinach. First, consumption of produce has increased, as has the share consumed fresh. U.S. consumers are eating more spinach, up 90 percent since 1992, and eating more fresh—the most risky form for microbial contamination. In 2005, the average consumer ate 2.4 pounds of fresh spinach, up 180 percent since 1992. An estimated 75-90 percent of fresh-market ­spinach is processed into fresh-cut salads or bagged spinach. Overall, consumption of processed spinach has trended downward since 1996. The heat used in processing kills E. coli O157:H7.
The second factor affecting the number of outbreaks is the increasing concentration within the produce industry. If something goes wrong at an operation handling a large volume of product, the number of ill consumers may be quite large and the outbreak may be more likely to be detected. For example, in the capital-intensive bagged-salad industry, two processing firms account for about 90 percent of the retail market.

Later..

Retail sales of bagged spinach and bagged salads with spinach have recovered more slowly than bunched spinach. During the period January 24-February 24, 2007, 5 months after the outbreak, the value of retail sales of bagged spinach was still down 27 percent from the same period a year ago, although that was much improved from the low fall 2006 sales. Sales of bagged salads with spinach show similar trends. Sales of bagged salads without spinach were down 5 percent; part of the decline may be due to the spinach outbreak, but there were also two smaller outbreaks in late 2006 that were linked to lettuce that probably shook consumer confidence.

On regulation...


For the first time, some in the produce industry are calling for the Federal Government to step in and regulate food safety. In January 2007, the United Fresh Produce Association adopted a set of principles declaring that for food safety standards to be credible to consumers, they must be mandatory, Government approved, based on commodity-specific needs, applied consistently across producers of the same commodity, and subject to Federal oversight. This would resolve the problem that growers face of determining what level of precautions is enough. Support for this position probably varies among producer groups.
Whoever sets the standards—industry or government—will have the same challenge: to develop science-based practices that reduce risk at the minimum cost.

Where's the funding?

James Lindsay, national program leader for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, gave a presentation to the fruit and vegetable industry advisory committee outlining some of the ARS ongoing research projects related to produce safety.


One of the most telling things is that he talked about was the lack of research money that is available to support produce safety research. "We have requested produce money every year since 1999 and it has not come," he said. The produce safety research unit has $14.1 million in funding this year, compared with about $12.5 million in 1999.
The ARS has received grant money from USDA's Cooperative State Research Education & Extension Service for produce related food safety, but any internal funding shifts for research have come from retirement or resignation of staff.

Given recent foodborne illness outbreaks, clearly the time has come to rebalance USDA's food safety research to reflect the urgent need to understand how pathogens interact with produce.

Thankless task

Citrus canker, citrus greening, plum pox virus, light brown apple moth and potato cyst nematode. That's the short list of invasive pests that Dr. Ricahrd Dunkle, deputy administrator of the Plant Protection and Quarantine, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, has to worry about. Dunkle gave a run down on USDA efforts to eradicate and/or manage invasive pests to the fruit and vegetable industry advisory committee.

Importantly, he said the USDA will soon publish a rule that will regulate movement of citrus from groves in Florida that have been infested with canker. That rule, in its review stage now, is on a track to be in place by this fall with the start of Florida's citrus harvest this fall.

He said the proposed rule, and a revised pest risk assessment, will shift the focus from pre-harvest to post harvest procedures. From my take on this presentation, he gave every indication fruit that is free of canker symptoms will be shipped out of Florida groves infested with canker to all destinations, including other U.S. citrus producing sates this upcoming season.
"We're looking at arriving at a rule, not based on groves certified free of canker, but will mitigate the disease at the choke point," he said. Post harvest treatments may include waxing or treating the fruit with chemicals that will retard or kill the canker.
Dunkle also said that devising a rule that will satisfy both Florida growers and citrus producing states in the U.S. that do not have and other countries that do no have canker is "not easy."
He also sounded a cautionary note about citrus greening disease, which he says may be worse in its long term effect than citrus canker.

It will be revealing to see if the soon published rule on citrus movement can be in place by this fall, given the fact that California citrus leaders are likely to raise objections. Dunkle noted that other countries with citrus canker (read Argentina) that so far have been precluded from shipping to the U.S. will soon be knocking on the door asking for the same treatment protocol as Florida will receive. Dunkle runs herd on some of the toughest issues in the industry, and to please one segment of the industry will be to bitterly disappoint another.

Bugs and thugs

Jeff Grode, executive director of agriculture programs and liaison office for Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, gave a presentation to the advisory committee on how the Department of Homeland Security is doing with agricultural inspections. He explained some of the agency's efforts to find appropriate staffing levels and explained the CBP's approach to dealing with risk of invasive pests. High volume low risk commodities are now inspected on the order of one in 20 or one in 25, while other higher risk commodities are inspected with every shipment.

He acknowledged legislation in Congress that seeks to return inspectors to the authority of the USDA, but he flipped the argument. If inspectors are switched back to the USDA, he said it may be likely that those inspectors could go through several years of transition again.

While it now may be a consensus industry view that ag inspectors should be moved back to the USDA, committee members saw no need to pound home that point with Grode.

Advisory kickoff

Bruce Knight, USDA Under Secretary of USDA Marketing and Regulatory Programs, kicked off the June 4 Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee today with a plea for the committee's input on the agency's activities.

"As an advisory committee, what is your expectation of the USDA? Is it regulator, partner or get out the way?," he said. He particularly asked for input on the agency role in food safety activities relating to produce.