Sludge Watch ==> California - Florez Bills Target Unsafe Farming of Leafy Greens

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Canada has continued to close its doors to spinach from Monterey County and 
San Benito County California. That is because no one has found out, 
definitively the cause of the Ecoli o157 outbreak and no one has taken 
measures that would prevent it happening again.

The bills proposed by Senator Florez would go a long way to protecting food.
I had a spinach salad yesterday in Canada...knowing it was not from these 
counties.  Americans are not protected from the spinach from these sources.

Labelling, traceability, no sewage sludge, and no sewage effluent ... these 
are some of the requirements for a good food safety program for greens.    
Irrigation water needs to be tested at the point of use.
......................................................


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-crops1feb01,1,2520218.story?coll=la-headlines-california


Bills would target unsafe farming of leafy greens
California lawmaker wants safe practices made law and a state inspection 
program.

By Marla Cone
Times Staff Writer

February 1, 2007

A state senator from the San Joaquin Valley said he would introduce 
legislation today that would ban some risky farm practices and allow state 
officials to inspect fields where leafy greens are grown.

The proposed law follows several recent deaths and numerous illnesses that 
have been linked to bacteria on California spinach and lettuce.

One of three bills to be introduced by Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) would 
order the state to establish mandatory "good agricultural practices" for 
growers of leafy greens. Currently, such practices, including testing of 
irrigation water and bans on use of raw manure and creek water on fields, 
are voluntary. Growers would be subject to criminal misdemeanor charges for 
breaking the rules, and violators could face jail time and fines.

Another bill would establish an inspection program that would give state 
health officials the authority to test water, soil and crops of farmers who 
are growing leafy greens. It also would require the growers to pay a fee, 
obtain a license and identify risk factors at their fields, such as 
proximity to cattle and wild animals.

The third bill would create a system designed to quickly trace back 
contaminated leafy greens from processor to farm.

Last week, the state Department of Food and Agriculture proposed a voluntary 
marketing agreement with food processors and growers that would create a 
program to certify lettuce and spinach. Companies that signed the agreement, 
which was drafted by growers, would accept products only from farmers who 
followed food safety procedures and were certified by inspectors authorized 
by the agriculture department.

But Florez said the voluntary program, which would rely on the industry 
policing itself, was not enough to reassure consumers after 21 disease 
outbreaks linked to California lettuce and spinach.

"This leafy green industry, I believe, is absolutely not able to police 
itself," he said. "There has been enough warning to California and to 
growers to get their act together. We feel very strongly a regulatory 
approach is the right approach to food safety."

Florez called the spinach and lettuce growers "a very rogue industry" that 
had not voluntarily followed safe procedures as other agricultural groups 
had.

He said he was expecting opposition from influential farm groups but that he 
believed that the Senate would agree "that we need to clean up this 
industry."

Ann Schmidt-Fogarty, manager of the California Farm Bureau Federation's 
communications and news office, said Wednesday that the bureau would not 
comment on Florez's proposed legislation, which is called the California 
Produce Safety Action Plan, before reviewing all the details.

"We have to look at the whole thing. No. 1, it's got to work, and it's got 
to be based on science," she said. "The bottom line is we all want food 
safety. No one wants to ensure that more than California family farmers."

California has about 900 farms that grow spinach and lettuce, crops that are 
worth $1.6 billion a year.

In two of the most recent disease outbreaks linked to California, four 
people died and about 300 became ill last year after eating bagged spinach 
grown in the Salinas Valley and lettuce served at Taco Bell and Taco John 
restaurants.


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marla.cone at latimes.com