On Tuesday, 400 people attended the 6th Annual Food Safety Forum at the State Fair Grounds in Raleigh. NC Ag Commissioner Steve Troxler hosted the event where Dr. Jim Gornay of the Office of Food Safety of the Food and Drug Administration was the first speaker, talking of crop-specific safety rules the agency is working on:
“So, again, with regard to produce guidance, last year in July of 2009, the agency issued melon, tomato, and leafy greens commodity specific guidance for the industry; they’re still in the draft form, as of today. Our guidances recognize and embrace progress that has been made by industry, and we’re currently studying some of the metrics that are out there from the industry, for lettuce, leafy greens and tomatoes, to see what can be incorporated into the produce rule…the produce food safety rule at the agency, what preventive controls should really be in place, and what performance standards should be there.”
Dr. Dan Englejohn, Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Data Integration and Food Protection, for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service stated that new poultry guidelines have already seen some successes, particularly in turkeys:
“With turkeys there will be fewer illnesses reported, that we think will be reduced simply because today, turkey carcasses are in fact doing a tremendous job of having salmonella in particular, eliminated or reduced from raw carcasses.”
Dr. Robert Tauxe, Deputy Director, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases from the CDC outlined the major foodborne pathogens, and why it’s so important to maintain good food safety standards:
“The six most important pathogens are; listeria, which does not cause a large number of cases of illness, but causes an important number of deaths, 500 a year, estimated. The E-coli O517, and the other shiga toxin producing E-coli, toxoplasma, a parasite causes an estimated 1 million cases a year, 275 death, and a lot of congenital illness and long-term disability. Salmonella, causing nearly 1.4 million cases, 500 deaths, campholabactor, which at the time this was estimated, caused even more illness than salmonella, although that isn’t the case any more, and noro virus, Norwalk-type viruses with an estimated 9 million foodborne cases.”
A panel of state and local officials spoke of their efforts in food safety, Debbie Hamrick, NC Farm Bureau Director of Specialty Crops, and NCDA’s Dan Ragan touched on the subject of false recalls that directly affect the producer:
Dan Ragan: “…That’s one of the reasons that we’re so proud of our ISO accreditation, because the things we’re testing for are going to be quality controlled, our testing is validated, our testing is accurate. So, certainly we do have a responsibility and an obligation to make the right call at the right time.”
“Does anyone want to chime in on that question?”
Debbie Hamrick:…”since we represent growers an indemnification clause, in Senate bill 510 is something that we’re still working on very diligently, behind the scenes, I can’t let Dan slip by without also pointing out that the farmers that are impacted in a food safety incident that involves fruits and vegetables, have absolutely no recourse against any government agency that might harm their business. We still have tomato growers in western North Carolina that are materially harmed by the tomato salmonella incident even though it wasn’t tomatoes, it was peppers that were imported from Mexico. So, we need as a country to take a look at our fruit and vegetable production infrastructure, and say that’s a part of our important infrastructure for the health of humans, and when we damage it, either intentionally or unintentionally, we need to say it should be repaired. Our fruit and vegetable producers are a vital part of our food supply infrastructure, and they should be treated that way.”
This comment brought a round of applause from vegetable farmers in the audience.
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