12/11/07 Food Safety Part 2`

Food Safety Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Last year a one acre patch of spinach threw the leafy vegetable industry into chaos and caused many people to question the safety of the U.S. food supply. It caused Earthbound Foods Natural Selection to completely revamp their way of doing business since the one acre came from one of their fields. Charles Sweat, President of Earthbound Farms says everyone in the industry has been looking into new safety practices and most importantly, preparation. SWEAT: Going through the crisis as I mentioned, you learn a lot but the key thing that I found that was important is you need to be prepared. You never know when a crisis is going to affect you as a grower, as a company, as a retailer and if you're not prepared for it the amount of chaos that comes at you in a very quick time in unbelievable. One main change is the introduction of a test and hold process. SWEAT: After we process and wash, we test the product again before it goes out and we don't ship anything until all the test results have come back negative. I think if you saw some articles about the beef industry the USDA is now thinking about requiring the beef industry to test and hold. Not test and ship and that's part of the issue is that once it gets shipped it's difficult to get the product recall back accurately. Sweat says they now look at the entire life of the products, from seed to harvest but with large open farm operations it's difficult to trace contaminations. Some have suggested that all farming operation go "undercover" so to speak. SWEAT: Greenhouses may see a growth (but) I got to tell you the amount of acreage that lettuce in the United States is grown on, would be a lot of greenhouses. I don't know how you could build that much. Maybe that will be the boom in construction will be greenhouses but I mean we have thousands and thousands of acres under farm production all the time much like up here with the orchards and all  I don't know how you'd get away from the open farm environment. He says there has been discussion about what to do with migratory birds, grazing deer and wild hogs but that is something that is pretty much out of their control. He says the bottom line is: SWEAT: Always remember that whether you are growing an apple, a pear, a cherry, salad, somebody is going to eat it and you want them to have a good experience and people that are eating it expect to have a good experience and that the food is safe. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.