Kandy land

I just visited with Steve Martori, president of Martori Farms, Scottsdale, Ariz, about Arizona's new immigration enforcement law for some coverage in The Packer. While I had him on the phone, I asked him about the melon deal so far this year.

He noted the melon season has seen a strong market until recently. Arizona volume is winding down, while California's central valley harvest should provide ample supply for the foreseeable future. However, he noted the first surge in California volume has abated and hot weather - reportedly close to 107 degrees in Fresno today - could have an unpredictable impact on volume.

Martori Farms has moved into organic melons in a big way, with about 600 acres in production this year. With the economies of scale, Martori said the company has been able to price organic melons at much closer to conventional pricing than might be typical.

"If you look at organics in general, they are 33% higher to 100% higher and we are able to keep it somewhat lower than that, so we are very optimistic," he said.

He said the company may have close to 2,000 acres of organic melons next year. About 900 acres of melons are being grown as transition melons this year, beyond the 600 acres certified organic.

Nutrition efforts questioned

This AP story by Martha Mendoza questions the effectiveness of nutrition education in the U.S.


From the story:

PANORAMA CITY, Calif. -- The federal government will spend more than $1 billion this year on nutrition education -- fresh carrot and celery snacks, videos of dancing fruit, hundreds of hours of lively lessons about how great you will feel if you eat well.But an Associated Press review of scientific studies examining 57 such programs found mostly failure. Just four showed any real success in changing the way children eat -- or promise as weapons against childhood obesity

TK: The story even notes the fruit and vegetable program is not an unblemished success. But can "nutrition education" be faulted considering, as the story also notes, the pervasiveness of advertising for other junk foods? From the story:

Children age 8 to 12 see an average of 21 television ads each day for candy, snacks, cereal and fast food -- more than 7,600 a year, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Not one of the 8,854 ads reviewed promoted fruits or vegetables.


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Tip of the iceberg

Arizona's new law that slaps on sanctions for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants was predictable, says Craig Regelbrugge of the American Nursery and Landscape Association and co-chair of the AgJobs coalition.

One of the things the Arizona law does is compel employers to use the pilot system to electronically verify Social Security numbers, but he noted that pilot system doesn't have all the kinks worked out yet and is not ready for a full rollout.

The failure of Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform will mean more states will take it upon themselves to write laws that clamp down on illegal immigration.

"The place where both parties most easily find the lowest common denominator is blaming the employer, and that's what we see in the Arizona law." he said.

TK: Regelbrugge said some lawmakers may have remorse over their failure to act on comprehensive immigration reform and could be open to AgJobs on some legislative vehicle. The industry would prefer not to rely on a politician's remorse, but here we are.

Farm subsidies under fire

This article in The New York Times is getting a lot of play, and shows why traditional farm interests in Congress may begin to lose their iron fisted grip on farm policy. Titled The Debate Over Subsidizing Snacks, the article by Marian Burros, looks at the public policy impact (particularly relating to obesity) from current farm policy. By now, these arguments are not new, but they do appear to be gaining traction.

Here is the lede:


EVERY five years the farm bill comes up for renewal and, usually, the only people paying attention are the farmers, their lobbyists and a few outraged groups who think subsidies are a big waste of taxpayers’ money.
This year is different.

TK: Why is it different this year? The story notes blame is laid on farm policy for: the growth in obesity, the increase in food poisonings, and the disappearance of the family farm.The article handicaps the chance for significant changes in farm policy, and the viewpoints are decidedly mixed. While several sources expressed optimism for real reform, a Farm Bureau official indicated it could be business as usual.
From the story:

Mary Kay Thatcher, a policy specialist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest farm lobbying group, said current subsidies, which the federation supports, might be tweaked, but added, “I think it is highly unlikely that we will see huge changes.”

TK: There is still much in the balance, but at least the arguments for funding fruit and vegetable industry priorities in the 2007 farm bill are not assigned to irrelevance quite yet.

Headline roundup July 5

Pledge of Allegiance Tribute : Red Skelton In honor of July 4, a classic commentary.

U.K. bagged salad recall
From the story passed on by K-State food safety network:

Professor Mike Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s centre for Food Safety, was quoted as saying, "One of the biggest concerns I have is with fresh cut produce that you buy in a bag and is ready to eat. You open it up and you feel safe eating it, but we have had severe outbreaks associated with these foods. The manufacturers say they have washed it and that you can eat it straight from the bag – to me that means that it should be safe to eat. But what we have learned from all these outbreaks is that it apparently isn’t."It is thought that fresh vegetables, fruit and salads become contaminated with bacteria because they are grown in contaminated soils.In an attempt to cut costs, it is common for some manufacturers to process their produce in the field, further exposing the food to bacteria.And there are concerns that the practice of washing fresh produce in chlorine, to sanitise it, is not effective to kill off the harmful bacteria.


Meet David Acheson - Your stomach's best friend From The Washington Post:

"Spinach picked on Monday is at the processor by Wednesday. It's in the consumer's hands by the following Monday and making them sick three days later. And it's in 40 states," he said. "That's quite daunting in terms of how do you get a handle on that. You don't know what's going on. You don't know if it's a deliberate attack, whether it's coming out of one small field in California or through a processor."
The steep rise in imports, driven in part by U.S. consumers' year-round demand for all kinds of food, complicates matters enormously and may drive the FDA to ask Congress for limited extra authority, Acheson said. But, given the huge array of foods that the FDA regulates, "it would take forever to inspect everything," he said. "You would burn so much money for nothing. It wouldn't buy you any fewer outbreaks or any less illness. It would just buy you a bunch of headaches."
Rather, he said, the FDA needs to focus on the foods and countries that pose the biggest risks, including the newest global players.

Amendments to China's food safety standards completed From China Daily China has made changes to 1,817 national standards for edible agricultural products and processed foods, and abolished 208 standards. Meanwhile, 2,588 standards set by the food industry, 6,949 standards established by local governments, as well as over 140,000 enterprise standards have been amended, according to Liu pingjun, head of the SAC.

An end to the delays

Here is a link to The New York Times editorial of yesterday about country of origin labeling.

The final graph:

If there are elements of the original law that are unnecessarily onerous and costly, these can be modified during the legislative process or during administrative rule-making to implement the law. But there should be no compromise of the basic principle that consumers have a right to know where their food comes from before popping it into their mouths.


TK: If produce industry lobbyists can get a replacement, voluntary COOL program in the farm bill this year, a year when the Democrats are in control and China's imports have created momentum for mandatory labeling, they deserve a million dollar bonus. It will be tough.