Hank Giclas, Author at Western Growers Association Western Growers Association

Posts By: Hank Giclas

FDA Publishes Environmental Assessment for Recent E.Coli Outbreak

Today, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration released an environmental assessment that provides an overview of factors that potentially contributed to the contamination of romaine lettuce with E. coli that was implicated in a 2018 multi-state foodborne illness outbreak. The assessment can be found here and includes the background on the outbreak; the environmental team ...

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DPR Recommends Interim Restrictions on Use of Pesticide Chlorpyrifos

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) is now recommending new interim restrictions on the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos. According to DPR’s announcement today, the new measures will provide increased protections from potential exposure to the pesticide, while DPR completes a formal regulatory process to list chlorpyrifos as a “toxic air contaminant” and develops…

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Data Power and Western Growers

Perhaps the single largest missed opportunity for the fresh produce sector is the failure to coalesce and share data. I am not talking about “transparency” of data—such that customers can learn the “provenance” of produce or other attributes. Nor am I talking about the distributed ledger or “blockchain” shared among supply chain partners. I am ...

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