08/26/08 Improving Inspections

Improving Inspections. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm kind of a fickle character. On one hand, I love anything to do with technology, the latest and greatest&then on the other hand I tend to shun technology often preferring to do things the "old-fashioned way." Today though, technology is helping to improve what you eat according to Jim Quigley, Program manager for the Washington State Department of Agricultures inspection program. QUIGLEY: Our program from an inspection standpoint over the past 4 or 5 years has really increased in value to the industry and also to our staff due to the fact that we are fully automated our program to the point where we've introduced tablet computers in the field where we actually record inspection results. That information is downloaded into a centralized database and made available to growers across the state. In addition, Quigley says they are doing a lot of audits on best handling practices. If you are interested he says you can look at the WSDA website. QUIGLEY: They can also obtain the checklist which is what we use to do an audit verification against so they know what they need to have in place in order to pass the audit. And really there's a lot of interest out there more so from the vegetable standpoint right now but the tree fruit industry is starting to look at it too, more and more all the time. Depending on your situation, auditors can be ready to look at an operation in no time but Quigley says they are getting busier. QUIGLEY: Right now we're starting to pick up more volume all the time due to the harvest starting to come in place, tree fruit has come at us a little bit and asked for more information on it. We do have some publications available to help them. Contact the WSDA for more information. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.