“The industry is enforcing upon themselves even more stringent food safety requirements than were previously in place through the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement,” said Scott Horsfall, CEO if the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA). …
In the past few days, the leafy greens industry has been working closely with their customers to remove any romaine grown in the Salinas region from marketing channels. All harvest and shipping of romaine grown in Salinas has ceased and fields that remained to be harvested are being plowed under by growers. …
The announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) of expanding illnesses in the E. Coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with romaine lettuce is being met with frustration and heartbreak by California lettuce farmers. …
The United Fresh Produce Association and Produce Marketing Association commend the collective efforts of the California-based leafy greens industry to bring the months-long effort of substantially improving their auditable ag water standards to an LGMA Board vote and adopting new, risk-based metrics. …
The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement announced they would be tightening metrics related to surface water used for overhead irrigation in response to the food safety issues of 2018. Taylor Farms announced it would only source product from growers who perform on-site treatment of water used in overhead irrigation. These are both very positive steps for the industry and real signs of leadership. But in reading the LGMA release, we couldn’t help but be drawn to the missing 1%. It is obvious that even the 1% of non-compliance is a risk too large for the industry to take. …
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