Western Growers is committed to helping the California and Arizona fresh lettuce and leafy greens industry develop best practices that will enhance the safety of these commodities as they are produced, harvested, processed, transported, and distributed to consumers throughout the world. To that end, we have taken the lead in developing a mandatory program that will be overseen by state and federal government authorities and provide for uniform standards, specific to these commodities and based on the current body of scientific knowledge. This program was accepted on March 23, 2007 by the Leafy Greens Handler Marketing Agreement Advisory Board.
This program, which is a tiered regulatory approach, begins with a California State Marketing Agreement which will require all participants to adhere to specific food safety practices as a condition of sale or purchase under the law. We are working to ensure that the California Marketing Agreement is expanded through the development and approval of both State and Federal Marketing Orders. This approach is one of a variety of approaches that industry can take to achieve the common goal of a mandatory regulation overseen by the Federal government. A program that will ensure that all domestic and imported product is produced in adherence to a uniform food safety program grounded in science.
Key to any approach is the development of strong food safety “best practices” that can provide the foundation for these regulatory models. Western Growers has worked collaboratively over the last several months with the Produce Marketing Association, California Farm Bureau Federation, Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, United Fresh Produce Association and many others to develop a set of specific recommendations and metrics for best practices that can become the foundation of the California Marketing Agreement and subsequent expansions of the regulatory environment. We have engaged outside scientists to assist with these efforts and have held countless discussions with growers, processors, academics, regulators and others as we assembled and refined a baseline draft.
On January 24, 2007, the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced the approval of the California Marketing Agreement and interested companies will begin to sign on as parties to this agreement. It is important now to communicate the current status of the developing best practices and to solicit broad input in an effort to ensure that these specifics are rigorous, practical, able to be implemented in the field and most importantly based on the best science available.
We are pleased to post the current “best practices” for production and harvest operations titled “Proposed Amendments to Section 1: Production and Harvesting Unit Operations” which are intended to become part of the Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidelines for the Lettuce and Leafy Greens Supply Chain which was published April 25, 2006.
Western Growers is submitting this document to food safety experts around the country for their formal review, comments and recommendations and expect that this document will undergo further modification. We strongly encourage all interested parties to take part in the improvement of this document and welcome comments, suggestions and questions on this document and any companion documents. We remain committed to working with all our partners to improve food safety, protect public health and provide a safe, wholesome healthful product to consumers.