" I heard it through the AgLine"

October 21, 2011

 

 

·       Colorado growers fear listeria backlash

·       Cantaloupe safety audit failed its mission

·       USDA spends $9.2M on local ag markets

·       Bag of onions for $150K to save farm

·       Fertilizer trees boost African crop yields

 

 

Colorado growers fear listeria backlash

 

DENVER (AP) — Colorado cantaloupe farmers fear it will be a while before people feel safe eating Rocky Ford melons again because of a deadly listeria outbreak linked to one farm in the state.

 

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday the melons at Jensen Farms likely were contaminated in the operation's packing house, which was using second-hand equipment. Melons in the field tested negative.

 

The report was released after the close of melon season in Rocky Ford, a region about 130 miles southeast of Denver, which is known for its sweet-tasting melons. Farmers there are now busy with the corn harvest.

 

Eric Hanagan, a farmer in the Rocky Ford region, fears cantaloupe sales will drop next year and plans to plant about 50 percent less, replacing it with a lower-income crop like corn. Still, he said he wasn't angry at Jensen Farms.

 

Hanagan didn't think the farm was trying to cut corners and said buying used equipment from other farms is common in agriculture. He said he sold most of his cantaloupe this year at farm stands and farmers' markets and sent a small number off site to be packed.

 

"We're all in this together," Hanagan said of farmers. "You don't do it to make money. You do it because of the lifestyle. It's just what you love to do."

 

Glenn Hirakata of the town of Rocky Ford, whose crops include wheat, corn, pumpkins, soybeans, cantaloupe and watermelon, said he's concerned the outbreak could hurt the market for cantaloupes next year. He said he wants to learn more about what went wrong at Jensen Farms to prevent anything like it from happening again.

 

There's no standard practice for picking and packing cantaloupe in Colorado.

 

State Agriculture Commissioner John Salazar said some packers simply pick and box the melons right in the field. Jensen Farms, meanwhile, had its own packing plant to clean and cull the crop because it was selling to supermarkets, he said.

 

"They were trying to do the right thing and it just kind of backfired on them," Salazar said.

 

With the lessons learned from the outbreak, Salazar said his department is going to work with producers to come up with the best practices for packing melons. However, his department has no authority to enforce whatever those standards turn out to be.

 

A new federal food safety law will require producers like Jensen Farms to submit detailed food safety plans to the FDA. The agency also will have to do more inspections of facilities like the packing plant.

 

Jensen Farms' owner didn't immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

 

FDA officials said Wednesday they had never inspected Jensen Farms.

 

Rocky Ford farmers have been irked that the region's reputation has suffered even though Jensen Farms is about a 90-minute drive from the region. However, the farm marketed its cantaloupes as Rocky Ford cantaloupes, prompting an overall warning from state health officials about Rocky Ford melons in general. The name has no legal protection to prevent farmers outside the region from using it.

 

Health officials later narrowed the source of the outbreak to Jensen Farms alone.

 

But even cantaloupe growers in Arizona and California, the nation's top two producers, have been hurt this fall as stores removed cantaloupes from their shelves.

 

Western Growers, the trade group representing growers there, said Wednesday it has worked for over 20 years to establish practices to prevent such an outbreak.

 

Return to Top

 

 

Cantaloupe safety audit failed its mission

 

(denverpost.com) – Jensen Farms made potentially dangerous changes to its cantaloupe operation before a deadly listeria outbreak this summer, and a third-party auditor failed to red-flag the problems just days before lethal melons shipped, according to people familiar with the audit and FDA probe.

 

A private auditor hired by Jensen to comply with buyers' standards noted the changes and other questionable methods, but still gave the farm a 96 score out of 100, acknowledged audit lab president Bob Stovicek.

 

In addition to Jensen's decision to begin using an unsuited potato-sorting device in 2011, which was noted in the FDA report, the auditor also saw the farm had stopped adding a chlorine-based agent to wash water. The chlorine could have helped stop pathogens like the listeria that has now killed 25 people nationwide, experts said.

 

"The absence of use of chlorine in the water as the melons were being washed was an extraordinarily unfortunate decision," said Trevor Suslow, a University of California-Davis food safety expert who advises the state's melon industry.

 

Suslow, who said he was familiar with the auditor's report, said the changes should have raised sharper warnings from the third-party audit conducted in July.

 

Stovicek said he was "comfortable" with the audit conducted by a subcontractor, but can't explain the wide disparities from the FDA's scathing probe of the cantaloupe operation, which was released Wednesday.

 

Primus Labs delegated its July audit to a Texas subcontractor called BioFood Safety. The farm received perfect scores in categories severely criticized in the FDA's visit, made on Sept. 22 and 23.

 

Stovicek and the FDA declined to release the private audit, saying it was the property of Jensen. USA Today obtained a full copy of the audit.

 

It noted the audit's perfect score for equipment design and condition. The FDA probe specifically attacked the new potato equipment as wrong for cantaloupe use, and difficult to clean properly.

 

Stovicek said the auditor did make comments about farm safety practices, but that the farm's methods were not outside the range of industry norms.

 

The FDA's review said Jensen, for example, was not using either of the two melon-cooling methods highlighted in industry guidelines the agency issued in 2009. Stovicek responded that the auditor noted how Jensen cooled its melons only by putting them directly into storage, but he added there are wide variations in industry practices for cooling.

 

Different farms in different regions have varied practices, he said.

 

"We can't say we're in synch with the FDA's assessment, and that's being said in light of all the tragedy," Stovicek said.

 

The FDA's long-existing melon growing guidelines, however mention only cold water cooling or forced-air cooling. The FDA's Jensen probe said failure to cool field-hot melons before storage was one condition contributing to background listeria growing to deadly proportions.

 

Suslow said the industry standards are clear.

 

"I don't accept the argument that it's not straightforward," he said. "Pre-cooling is a component important to both quality and safety."

 

Some food safety experts want the FDA to take more oversight of third-party auditors, since the FDA does not have resources to personally inspect every grower. Even under the Food Modernization Safety Act signed in January, the FDA's goal — so far unfunded — is to reach every grower in five to seven-year intervals.

 

Experts say there are now multiple examples of private auditors giving high scores to farms just before those farms produced deadly illness outbreaks.

 

"Absolutely it raises questions about third-party auditors," said Larry Goodridge, a microbiologist and farming expert with Colorado State University. "The auditing industry, if you want to call it that, is not really regulated."

 

BioFood Safety declined comment on their auditing role, citing the ongoing investigation. Listeria on cantaloupe from the Jensen Farm has killed 25 people and sickened many others nationwide. Jensen attorneys have not responded to requests for comment.

 

Stovicek said Primus would continue using BioFood Safety, and has full confidence in the auditor, James DiIorio. Stovicek provided DiIorio's resume, showing he graduated from Texas A&M in 2009 in industrial engineering. Stovicek said DiIorio had two one-week training courses for auditing, backed by food safety positions on his family farm and other experience.

 

Stovicek could not say if DiIorio had ever audited a cantaloupe operation before.

 

The Primus staff will compare the audit to the FDA's probe and "see why there are such deviations," Stovicek said. Some snapshots of conditions hit in the FDA's review, such as a manure-splashed truck parked near the open-air packing shed, may have changed between the July audit and the FDA's September farm visit, Stovicek said.

 

"Even though it looks as horrendous as it does, this is why we felt we did our job," he said. "What we do is an observation; we're not the buyer, and we're not a regulator."

 

Primus will now, however, require swab tests for operations handling cantaloupes, avocados, mangos and papayas, Stovicek said.

 

The FDA said its investigation continues while Jensen is precluded from shipping produce. It said further sanctions are possible, but food safety attorneys said criminal charges in food cases are rare unless an operator's actions appear intentional.

 

Return to Top

 

 

USDA spends $9.2M on local ag markets

 

(USDA) – WASHINGTON – Nearly 150 farm-to-consumer marketing projects received funding today under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP), marking a $9.2 million investment to support direct marketing and to increase consumer access to healthy food, much of it in food deserts and other low-income areas.

 

This year's awards-- 149 in total, distributed across 42 states and the District of Columbia-- showed a rise in urban projects and increased diversity in the types of projects funded.

 

"Earlier this year, we reported that more than 1,000 new farmers markets have been recorded across the United States, totaling 7,175 markets," said Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. "Through programs like FMPP, we believe that USDA's contributions to direct farm-to-consumer marketing are providing alternative economic opportunities for our nation's agricultural producers."

 

Traditionally, FMPP has funded projects in both rural and urban areas. However, this year saw a shift toward a more even distribution, with urban projects growing to nearly half of the portfolio. "In addition to funding many worthy start-up farmers markets, I was particularly pleased to note a rise in the number of innovative projects like those that create or expand community-supported agriculture programs (CSAs), agritourism, and mobile markets," Merrigan added.

 

Increasing fresh food access in food deserts – low-income areas identified as having limited access to affordable and nutritious food – and other low-income communities was a priority for this year's awards. As a result, over 40 percent of projects funded by FMPP this year serve one or more food deserts and another 20 percent will be implemented in communities with a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher.

 

Additionally, improvements in transportation and delivery methods, purchase of refrigeration equipment and improvements to packaging and storage that facilitate food access comprise nearly a third of the projects funded. Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) projects continue to exceed the congressionally mandated 10 percent, accounting for approximately 24 percent of total funding which gives participants in federal nutrition assistance programs even greater access to nutritious food.

 

Among the more innovative projects this year are:

• Renaissance Project of New Orleans, which will operate food banks and mobile produce markets at social service agencies and public housing facilities in New Orleans, La.

• Round Valley Indian Health Inc., which will develop a program to provide locally raised products to schools in Covelo, Calif., through a CSA.

• EcoStation: NY, Inc., which will purchase, operate and staff a solar- and biodiesel-powered refrigerated mobile market in low-income areas of Kings County, N.Y.

• Lulus Local Food of Richmond, Va., which will establish four virtual online farmers markets and also provide farmers the opportunity to participate in a related gleaning program.

• Oregon Cheese Guild, which will work with Oregon cheese makers to create an "Oregon Cheese Trail" through a comprehensive agritourism and media outreach initiative.

 

 Since its inception in 2006, the Farmers Marketing Promotion Program has awarded more than $23 million across the country to support direct producer-to-consumer marketing and local food projects. FMPP is administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service. Projects are expected to be completed within 24 months of initiation. The full list of awards granted for fiscal year 2011 is available at http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FMPP

 

Return to Top

 

 

Bag of onions for $150K to save farm

 

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - Desperate times call for desperate measures. Such is the case for a farmer in Orange County, New York.

 

Chris Pawelski, of Pine Island, says the losses he suffered after Irene and Lee threaten the future of the farm that’s been in his family for four generations. He lost all but a few acres of his onions.

 

He’s seeking to raise some serious money and attention to what he says are the many problems with crop insurance programs.

 

“There is just so many different types of little rules and gimmicks within the program that render it virtually useless,” he told WCBS 880 reporter Paul Murnane.

 

Pawelski is selling a 50 pound bag of yellow onions for $150,000 on eBay. He’s throwing in a five gallon bucket of black dirt soil for free.

 

Given the unique farming situation in Orange County, he’d like crops to be considered property losses.

 

Farmers could then line up for help from FEMA.

 

But that’s just one of many problems facing agricultural in the region, he says.

 

“Hurricane Irene struck the black dirt region of the lower Hudson Valley, 1 hour north of New York City, devastating thousands of acres of farmland including our farm. The storm hit at the worst possible time, when we had 90 percent to 95 percent of our expenses into our crops. We lost 48 out of 51 acres of onions. My farm has lost over $150,000 this year alone and coupled with past disasters we are over $200,000 in the hole with no hope in sight,” Pawelski writes in his eBay ad. “This isn’t just about saving a farm, and the seeds, and dirt, and wood, and plastic, and metal, and machinery, and sweat, and gears, and tractors, and barns, and tools, and crops and tears … it’s about hope and it’s about our future, ours and yours, help us feed you.”

 

To bid on the onions yourself, click HERE.

 

Return to Top

 

 

Fertilizer trees boost African crop yields

 

(EurekaAlert.org) NAIROBI, KENYA – On a continent battered by weather extremes, famine and record food prices, new research released from the World Agroforestry Centre documents an exciting new trend in which hundreds of thousands of poor farmers in Southern Africa are now significantly boosting yields and incomes simply by using fast growing trees and shrubs to naturally fertilize their fields.

 

The analysis of two decades of work to bring the soil-enriching benefits of so-called "fertilizer trees" to the nutrient-depleted farms of Africa was published in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.

 

"In only five African countries, there are now some 400,000 smallholder farmers using fertilizer trees to provide critically needed soil nutrients—and many report major increases in maize yields—which shows that it is possible to rapidly introduce innovations in Africa that can have an immediate impact on food security," said Oluyede Ajayi, Senior Scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre and the paper's lead author.

 

The study focuses on the rapid adoption of fertilizer trees by farmers targeted in research, training and extension programs in Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In eastern Zambia alone, the study reports the use of fertilizer trees grew from a pilot project in the early 1990s that involved only 12 farmers to adoption by 66,000 farmers as of 2006. In Malawi, there are now 145,000 farmers using fertilizer trees.

 

In addition, across the region, researchers have documented a doubling of maize yields on farms employing fertilizer trees compared to those that did not, which has dramatically increased both incomes and food security. In Zambia, for example, incomes for farmers using the fertilizer trees averaged from $233 to $327 per hectare, compared to only $130 for unfertilized fields. And the increased yields provided between 57 to 114 extra days of food.

 

"We also found that when farmers plant these trees, water efficiency improves," Ajayi said. "Farmers are getting higher yields from the same amount of rainwater. And the trees are helping reduce the run-off and soil erosion that is a key factor behind food production shortfalls in Africa."

 

Fertilizer trees enhance soil health by drawing nitrogen from the air and transferring it to the soil through their roots and leaf litter, replenishing exhausted soils with rich sources of organic nutrients. Scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre have been working since the 1980s to identify indigenous tree species, such as a fast growing variety of acacia that can be planted alongside crops to improve soil fertility. Among the many burdens facing African farmers are soils that are among the most depleted in the world. Yet for two-thirds of farmers on the continent, mineral supplements are either too expensive or simply unavailable.

 

 In recent years, the Centre's work has focused on partnerships, particularly with national agriculture extension programs that can help more smallholder farmers integrate fertilizer trees into their crop production systems. Ajayi said the rapid adoption of the fertilizer tree approach is partly due to the fact that researchers have turned over much of the project design and testing to farmers.

 

"Initially, these fertilizer tree projects were controlled mostly by researchers," Ajayi said. "But in the final phases of development, all of the testing in the field was completely designed and fully managed by the farmers themselves."

 

Ajayi also credited initiatives that focused on integrating the fertilizer tree approach with national agriculture policies and priorities.

 

Researchers believe wider use of fertilizer trees in Africa will require a two-track strategy that involves simultaneously engaging policy makers and farmers.

 

Ajayi cautioned that, while they are a natural way of supplementing the soil, fertilizer trees should not become entangled in the divisive "organic versus inorganic" debate over how to boost to increase crop yields in Africa. It is important to increase the use of both types of nutrient sources in complementary ways. For example, research has shown that coupling fertilizer trees with small doses of mineral fertilizer often results in generating the highest productivity and financial returns.

 

"We need to provide farmers in Africa with a wide range of soil fertility options and not focus on one type or another as being somehow superior," he said.

 

Researchers also say future work should focus on the potential for fertilizer trees to improve yields of high value crops, such as coffee and cocoa

 

Return to Top

 

 

End Transmission