Leafy green comments

One of the agenda items on tap for the Feb. 7-8 meeting of the Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee (the first one I'll miss) is looking at comments submitted to the AMS advance notice of rulemaking for a national leafy greens marketing order or agreement. In fact, you can find more than 3,000 comments about the question of possible rulemaking, which had a Dec. 3 deadline. Go to www.regulations.gov and search with the docket number AMS-FV-07-0090 if you want to read more.

Here are couple of instructive comments that show the idea of regulation is far from universally embraced .

I am writing to express my concern about the proposal to establish handling regulations for leafy greens through a marketing order or agreement. (Docket # AMS-FV-07-0090; FV07-962-1 AN). The response to last year?s outbreaks of E coli 0157:H7 linked to spinach and other leafy greens is a critical issue for consumers, but the lack of response by the Food and Drug Administration means that food safety has been left to the industry itself. I believe it is not appropriate to shift food safety standards to the realm of marketing agreements that are enforced by the very industry that is subject to the rules. Food safety is not a marketing issue, safe food is something that all consumers deserve, no matter what brand they buy. The failure of FDA to develop a meaningful regulatory program for produce cannot be wiped away by dumping the problem in the lap of a marketing program at the USDA. Also, it is vital that the experience of using a marketing order on leafy green vegetables in California be considered before proceeding with a national plan. One of the biggest issues identified by producers in California is the fact that the marketing order process does not allow for the needs and farming practices of all of california?s producers. Many organic and small-scale producers are finding the California agreement difficult if not impossible to live with. The
requirements being promoted by some purchasers include extreme measures such as
removing buffer zones and wildlife habitat that fly in the face of organic production methods while ignoring the potential for waste from large scale confined animal feeding operations to affect leafy greens. Rather than relying on a USDA enforced marketing agreement or order, we believe that the FDA must step up and deal with this issue, simply issuing guidance
documents to industry or allowing the biggest firms in the industry to write the rules for everyone is not going to instill confidence in consumers that the food supply is safe. And any standard (whether enforced by FDA, USDA, or by industry through a marketing agreement) that is impossible to achieve on small, diversified farms that grow multiple crops is not acceptable.

sincerely,

N. Abram



And another....

Q. (1) I am opposed to the use of Marketing Orders or Marketing Agreements for food safety purposes. I am particularly opposed to an arrangement where a board of handlers and processors is given government-sanctioned control over farming practices on every farm in the country.
Q. (7) Neither the FDA guidelines nor the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (LGMA) metrics are appropriate for most family farms and they are hostile to many organic farming practices. I am concerned that the science needed to make effective rules regarding the spread of pathogens such as E. coli 0157:H7 is inadequate and making blanket rules is premature and costly. There have already been two recalls involving signatories of the LGMA, showing mat their "Good Agricultural Practices" do not solve the problem of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination. The LGMA metrics discriminate against certain types of biological farming and wildlife practices with no scientific justification. I urge you to take biological practices into consideration in any proposed rules, since such things as wetlands and microbial diversity in soil have been found to reduce pathogens.
Q. (8) I believe that the USDA should limit the definition of leafy greens it is seeking to regulate to the high-risk, "fresh-cut" bagged salad products, and not include traditional whole leafy greens. The current definition of leafy greens in the proposed regulations includes produce that has never been implicated in an outbreak such as chard, arugula and kale. The vast majority of growers sell to the whole fresh market and have never been implicated in an outbreak or recall. According to data from fee US Food and Drug Administration, since 1999,98.5 percent of E. coli 0157:H7 illnesses from leafy greens in California have been traced to fresh-cut salad in California. Traditional fresh market growers should not be regulated by rules designed for large-scale suppliers of the fiesh-cut processing industry.
Q.(10) To comply with the California LGMA metrics would cost farmers tens of thousands of dollars. The water testing requirements are particularly onerous and excessive in many watersheds where pathogens are not widespread. Large growers have the personnel and resources to comply with such requirements and smaller family farms do not If the USDA implements such rules for all leafy greens growers, it will drive many small and organic farms out of the leafy greens market and destroy the local food systems that the agency has been encouraging across the country. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

L. McGrath
Family Farm Food Safety Council