In the wake of last year’s E. coli outbreak, California’s
agriculture industry has led the way in development of a safety
program aimed at ensuring that people aren’t at risk from eating
raw spinach and other leafy greens.
But consumer groups, including the heavyweight Consumer’s Union (the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine), say that’s the big problem with California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement: The very industry responsible for the E. coli outbreak that killed three people and sickened hundreds nationwide has written the new rules and would be responsible for enforcing them.
The leafy green growers, handlers and packagers that have developed the marketing agreement certainly deserve credit for quickly stepping up and doing what nobody else has done. But is it really enough to both ensure the safety of foods headed for America’s dinner table and to win back the trust of consumers? Probably not.
That’s why the California Department of Health Services needs to be given the mandate to establish and enforce safety standards on farms and in the places where spinach and other leafy greens are processed and packaged for distribution and sale to consumers.
The state Department of Food and Agriculture has worked with the ag industry in development of its marketing agreement, which calls for farmers and processors participating in the program to adhere to a set of best practices guidelines.
The problem with that is that the Department of Food and Agriculture is set up more to promote California’s agricultural products than to police the industry. The Department of Health Services, on the other hand, is set up to handle health and safety issues and has no such ties to the industry.
Since last September’s E. coli outbreak, which was traced to spinach grown on a farm here in San Benito County, wary consumers have been slow to start eating spinach again. The industry has suffered losses estimated at between $75 million and $100 million. Here in Hollister, the owner of one small chain of supermarkets said his spinach sales have so far recovered to only about 50 percent of what they were prior to the E. coli outbreak.
Food safety is crucial to the economic health of the agriculture industry here and across California. It’s just as important that consumers trust that the spinach and leafy greens they buy in the store won’t harm their health. The state needs to do everything it can to help on both counts.
