Leafy Green Rule Raises Concerns
Submitted by Editor on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 2:14pm.
Maegan Crandall
Central N.Y. Correspondent
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The E. coli outbreak linked to contaminated California-grown spinach in 2006 that affected 26 states, sickened at least 200 people and was responsible for three deaths, ultimately resulted in the creation of the 2007 Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) in California.
The LGMA, which requires producers to follow a set of rules (metrics) in the name of food safety, is now being proposed on a national basis, and has garnered both support and harsh criticism.
The new proposed rule — National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (NLGMA) — is being discussed at various USDA hearings around the country. One of these hearings took place Tuesday in Syracuse, N.Y.
While there are differing opinions from one testimony to the next, there is a general consensus that all farmers, handlers, and retail locations have a shared interest in producing, packaging and selling safe food.
“We all have a strong desire to produce the safest food supply we can. Many of us want our farms to go to the next generation, and we take pride and care in what we do. Practicing good agricultural practice (GAP) shows that we care. I think with the trend of the local movement developing more and more, people are looking to see where their food is coming from, and connecting with actual people who are producing it,” said proponent Maureen Torrey of Torrey Farms in western N.Y., which produces 6,000 acres of vegetables, 900 acres of which are cabbage.
Proponent William Pool, manager of agricultural production and research for Wegmans Food Markets, believes the new agreement is a step in the right direction for food safety.
“The NLGMA will be uniform food safety practices in production areas other than California and will reduce the potential for food borne illness linked to leafy greens from other areas. When there is an outbreak, the entire industry is affected,” he said.
However, while food safety is a natural priority for most farms, many farmers and industry representatives believe the NLGMA proposed rule will not only fall short of desired food safety goals, it also represents a detriment to small farmers, the economy, the environment, and the local food movement.
“While food safety is an important issue, the AMS marketing agreement is an ineffective solution,” said Amanda Gormley, marketing manager for Syracuse real food cooperative market.
One issue that producers generally agree on is that the proposed rule fails to effectively categorize zone parameters — or grouped areas of production. For instance, the state of New York is grouped together with the warmer, southern states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
“When I read about how the zones will be determined, I think there could be better grouping than there currently is. About climate, topography, growing practices, etc. For instance, New York is in zone five. I feel I have a lot more in common with my growing practices and so forth with, let’s say, Michigan, Wisconsin, and other northern states, more than I do with South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. Yet with the developing of the metrics, and the determination of the zones, and the make up of the committee, we will be grouped all together. I think those zones could be realigned better with a more accurate formation of the committees,” said Brian Reeves, a farmer from Baldwinsville, N.Y. with 300 acres of fresh market vegetables.
Opponent Steve Gilman, former farmer and current policy coordinator for the interstate council of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), agrees. According to proposed rule, of the 23 committee members who would administer the program, 13 are handlers, and only six are producers.
“While these zones make little geographic or agricultural sense, they do form the basis for how the agreement’s governing administrative committee is constituted, and as much previous testimony has already pointed out — this puts the big handlers who are promoting this agreement in the driver’s seat in each and every zone,” he said.
A further concern expressed by producers is an increasing level of audit fatigue and over-lapping regulations. While Reeves expressed confidence that a uniform national agreement might provide some sense of audit relief, it might also backfire.
“What happens when the tomato people come along? What happens when the cucumber people come along? I would hope in the long run, there would be a melding together of these metrics. There’s no sense in having a USDA audit on my farm for several crops I grow, and then have to have a separate audit for the leafy greens. That just creates an issue instead of solving an issue. When I’ve examined other audits I’ve seen virtually no difference between the metrics they use, and what they measure. What I do see is another travel expense and another visit by someone to my farm, and another time I need to sit down and show them documents, and another check I have to write. But I don’t see the food being any safer,” he said.
Several additional producers went a step further and expressed concern that the proposed NLGMA rule is more of a marketing tool — and attempt by large growers and handlers in the west — to initiate a public relations effort.
“Combined with the national movement to buy local and to know your farmer, I can see the larger growers in the west are looking to paint themselves in a better light to the public and to derail the buy-local movement. But that does not mean that the rest of us need to pay for their mistakes, or for the downfall of their huge scales of production and processing,” said opponent Richard Bonanno, owner and operator of Pleasant Valley Gardens in Massachusetts.
Opponent Lou Johns of Blue Heron Farm in Lodi, N.Y., also admits that he shares little interest or concern with the companies that have approached the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) with their proposed marketing agreement.
“Their goal is simply to obtain approval and backing from the U.S. government for a system of self-regulation for their sector of the industry that supplies the major retail and institutional marketplace with fresh and processed produce in the United States and beyond. Along with this approval comes the seal of the USDA on all their products, thus giving them a clear marketing advantage over other suppliers,” he said.
Further, Bonanno questions the creation of further food safety audits when the fact remains that the exact cause of the outbreak in 2006 is still uncertain.
“The additional problem unfortunately is I have not seen a conclusive analysis of what went wrong with the most recent spinach scare. There is no consensus with the FDA as far as I can tell — if it was wildlife, livestock, or a problem within the packing industry. I personally find it hard to fix a problem when I have no idea what went wrong in the first place,” he said.
The cost of compliance and a producer’s voluntary choice to conform to the new agreement is also of concern. Many small farmers wonder if they can afford the additional hours — both in terms of time and money — that will likely be spent meeting the new regulations, and if opting out of the Agreement will lead to loss of income and loss of available handlers and retail markets who are only willing to work with compliant producers.
“While this proposal is depicted as a voluntary agreement, in all practical aspects it is not. Once created, the national LGMA standard becomes the 900-pound gorilla ruling the marketplace. After the big volume handlers become signatories it will be very difficult for other handlers to decline to sign if they want to be able to remain in business. In this new day of USDA initiatives such as “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food,” it’s critical that the AMS fully understands the potentially destructive effects of top-down market-based regulatory schemes on small farm businesses. Just when their local small business marketing opportunities are soaring, farmers are being confronted with a wide range of inappropriate one-size-fits-all regulations that could severely impact this entire agricultural sector,” said Gilman.
Finally, Johns believes that there is a bigger and more complicated picture that the proposed agreement fails to address.
“The recent pathogen contaminant events are just one example of industry-wide issues that are simply inherent in an agricultural system based around large scale, mono-crop farm operations that rely heavily on petroleum, natural gas, or manure-based fertilizers from large-scale cattle, swine, and poultry operations, and synthetic pest management chemicals including pesticides, fungicide, herbicides, and anti-microbial agents in washing facilities. The industry also relies heavily on energy consumptive refrigeration to not only control product quality, but to also suppress pathogen growth during long-term storage and shipping times between farm and table.”
Maegan CrandallCentral N.Y. Correspondent
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The E. coli outbreak linked to contaminated California-grown spinach in 2006 that affected 26 states, sickened at least 200 people and was responsible for three deaths, ultimately resulted in the creation of the 2007 Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) in California.
The LGMA, which requires producers to follow a set of rules (metrics) in the name of food safety, is now being proposed on a national basis, and has garnered both support and harsh criticism.
The new proposed rule — National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (NLGMA) — is being discussed at various USDA hearings around the country. One of these hearings took place Tuesday in Syracuse, N.Y.
While there are differing opinions from one testimony to the next, there is a general consensus that all farmers, handlers, and retail locations have a shared interest in producing, packaging and selling safe food.
“We all have a strong desire to produce the safest food supply we can. Many of us want our farms to go to the next generation, and we take pride and care in what we do. Practicing good agricultural practice (GAP) shows that we care. I think with the trend of the local movement developing more and more, people are looking to see where their food is coming from, and connecting with actual people who are producing it,” said proponent Maureen Torrey of Torrey Farms in western N.Y., which produces 6,000 acres of vegetables, 900 acres of which are cabbage.
Proponent William Pool, manager of agricultural production and research for Wegmans Food Markets, believes the new agreement is a step in the right direction for food safety.
“The NLGMA will be uniform food safety practices in production areas other than California and will reduce the potential for food borne illness linked to leafy greens from other areas. When there is an outbreak, the entire industry is affected,” he said.
However, while food safety is a natural priority for most farms, many farmers and industry representatives believe the NLGMA proposed rule will not only fall short of desired food safety goals, it also represents a detriment to small farmers, the economy, the environment, and the local food movement.
“While food safety is an important issue, the AMS marketing agreement is an ineffective solution,” said Amanda Gormley, marketing manager for Syracuse real food cooperative market.
One issue that producers generally agree on is that the proposed rule fails to effectively categorize zone parameters — or grouped areas of production. For instance, the state of New York is grouped together with the warmer, southern states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
“When I read about how the zones will be determined, I think there could be better grouping than there currently is. About climate, topography, growing practices, etc. For instance, New York is in zone five. I feel I have a lot more in common with my growing practices and so forth with, let’s say, Michigan, Wisconsin, and other northern states, more than I do with South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. Yet with the developing of the metrics, and the determination of the zones, and the make up of the committee, we will be grouped all together. I think those zones could be realigned better with a more accurate formation of the committees,” said Brian Reeves, a farmer from Baldwinsville, N.Y. with 300 acres of fresh market vegetables.
Opponent Steve Gilman, former farmer and current policy coordinator for the interstate council of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), agrees. According to proposed rule, of the 23 committee members who would administer the program, 13 are handlers, and only six are producers.
“While these zones make little geographic or agricultural sense, they do form the basis for how the agreement’s governing administrative committee is constituted, and as much previous testimony has already pointed out — this puts the big handlers who are promoting this agreement in the driver’s seat in each and every zone,” he said.
A further concern expressed by producers is an increasing level of audit fatigue and over-lapping regulations. While Reeves expressed confidence that a uniform national agreement might provide some sense of audit relief, it might also backfire.
“What happens when the tomato people come along? What happens when the cucumber people come along? I would hope in the long run, there would be a melding together of these metrics. There’s no sense in having a USDA audit on my farm for several crops I grow, and then have to have a separate audit for the leafy greens. That just creates an issue instead of solving an issue. When I’ve examined other audits I’ve seen virtually no difference between the metrics they use, and what they measure. What I do see is another travel expense and another visit by someone to my farm, and another time I need to sit down and show them documents, and another check I have to write. But I don’t see the food being any safer,” he said.
Several additional producers went a step further and expressed concern that the proposed NLGMA rule is more of a marketing tool — and attempt by large growers and handlers in the west — to initiate a public relations effort.
“Combined with the national movement to buy local and to know your farmer, I can see the larger growers in the west are looking to paint themselves in a better light to the public and to derail the buy-local movement. But that does not mean that the rest of us need to pay for their mistakes, or for the downfall of their huge scales of production and processing,” said opponent Richard Bonanno, owner and operator of Pleasant Valley Gardens in Massachusetts.
Opponent Lou Johns of Blue Heron Farm in Lodi, N.Y., also admits that he shares little interest or concern with the companies that have approached the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) with their proposed marketing agreement.
“Their goal is simply to obtain approval and backing from the U.S. government for a system of self-regulation for their sector of the industry that supplies the major retail and institutional marketplace with fresh and processed produce in the United States and beyond. Along with this approval comes the seal of the USDA on all their products, thus giving them a clear marketing advantage over other suppliers,” he said.
Further, Bonanno questions the creation of further food safety audits when the fact remains that the exact cause of the outbreak in 2006 is still uncertain.
“The additional problem unfortunately is I have not seen a conclusive analysis of what went wrong with the most recent spinach scare. There is no consensus with the FDA as far as I can tell — if it was wildlife, livestock, or a problem within the packing industry. I personally find it hard to fix a problem when I have no idea what went wrong in the first place,” he said.
The cost of compliance and a producer’s voluntary choice to conform to the new agreement is also of concern. Many small farmers wonder if they can afford the additional hours — both in terms of time and money — that will likely be spent meeting the new regulations, and if opting out of the Agreement will lead to loss of income and loss of available handlers and retail markets who are only willing to work with compliant producers.
“While this proposal is depicted as a voluntary agreement, in all practical aspects it is not. Once created, the national LGMA standard becomes the 900-pound gorilla ruling the marketplace. After the big volume handlers become signatories it will be very difficult for other handlers to decline to sign if they want to be able to remain in business. In this new day of USDA initiatives such as “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food,” it’s critical that the AMS fully understands the potentially destructive effects of top-down market-based regulatory schemes on small farm businesses. Just when their local small business marketing opportunities are soaring, farmers are being confronted with a wide range of inappropriate one-size-fits-all regulations that could severely impact this entire agricultural sector,” said Gilman.
Finally, Johns believes that there is a bigger and more complicated picture that the proposed agreement fails to address.
“The recent pathogen contaminant events are just one example of industry-wide issues that are simply inherent in an agricultural system based around large scale, mono-crop farm operations that rely heavily on petroleum, natural gas, or manure-based fertilizers from large-scale cattle, swine, and poultry operations, and synthetic pest management chemicals including pesticides, fungicide, herbicides, and anti-microbial agents in washing facilities. The industry also relies heavily on energy consumptive refrigeration to not only control product quality, but to also suppress pathogen growth during long-term storage and shipping times between farm and table.”
