Beef Recall & Fresh Safety Rules

Beef Recall & Fresh Safety Rules plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. The Food and Drug Administration, in cooperation with others, is working on fresh produce safety rules and practices for growers. Dr. Jeff Farrar, with the Food and Drug Administration, says that grower level rules on fresh produce safety will be a product of input from all aspects of the industry. FARRAR: The rule will basically take a very prevention oriented approach, a very risk based approach to finding those measures that can and should be implemented at the growing level to reduce the risk of contamination. We're taking a very proactive effort here to reach out to industry all across the United States. We've had quite a large number of listening sessions to get input from those people who do this on a daily basis, who understand the business. We're very sensitive to input from small growers. WinCo Foods has expanded a recall it issued for its hamburger product to include ground beef sold at its 70 WinCo Food stores in California, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Utah. Two samples of the beef were found to contain E.coli bacteria. According to WinCo, an investigation conducted by government agencies found new information that potentially implicates WinCo's ground beef suppliers. The recalled ground beef was sold in Styrofoam trays between March 28 and April 9. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Fifty is the new forty, forty is the new thirty, and agriculture is the new golf. At least that's the aim of developers trying to revive acres of unfinished subdivisions; ghostly testaments to the housing market implosion. Town planners are working with developers to design communities around sustainable agriculture similar to how golf communities were designed around golf courses. It's a bit of a stretch, but it could work. A very small percentage of people living in golf course communities actually play golf, whereas everybody eats. Granted it won't be as easy as laying down some sod and putting in sand traps for a nine hole golf course, but with a large portion of the nation's people yearning for a return to simpler times "agriburbia" just might work well; and in the process create jobs, supply food, and help the environment. Not all existing suburbs built during the housing market boom will make the cut of being suitable for conversion to sustainable urban farm communities, several of the "McMansion" subdivisions will more than likely succumb to ruin. But subdivisions transformed into sustainable farming communities is doable, not easy, but doable. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.