CDFA To Hold Good Ag Neighbors Workshops

Workshop Designed for Produce Growers and Livestock Areas to Promote Food Safety

News Release

In order to facilitate dialogue between different sectors of California agriculture about cooperation to prevent future foodborne illness outbreaks, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is partnering with the University of California and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring the livestock and produce communities together for a series of workshops.

The workshops, titled Good Ag Neighbors, are designed for fruit and vegetable growers, livestock owners, and others interested in learning about how produce safety and livestock management practices can work jointly to promote food safety.

The workshops will be held in two California locations, with the first scheduled for June 11 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Desert Research and Extension Center in Holtville. The second workshop is scheduled for June 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Robert J Cabral Ag Center in Stockton.

“Agriculture is complex,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “This is particularly true in California, where diverse agricultural operations often exist side-by-side, with each of them required to comply with a myriad of regulations designed to protect the public, the environment, and the food supply.”

Karen Ross, CDFA Secretary

Diversity is extremely important to the fabric of California agriculture. Also important is open communication channels between diverse partners. This has become more apparent with the CDFA’s newly created Produce Safety Program, which is working on behalf of the U.S. FDA to enforce produce safety regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act.

The workshops will address lessons learned from recent investigations of produce-related foodborne illness outbreaks, examine key research findings, and consider future research needs.

The workshops are being conducted by the UC Davis Western Institute for Food Safety and Security and will include presentations by researchers and industry representatives. The day-long agenda will focus in the morning on reviewing regulations, laws, and practices already in place to protect food and environmental safety, while the afternoon will be spent in various breakout groups examining how these practices can be leveraged.

Participants should come prepared to share their experiences as well as their produce safety questions.

The workshops are offered free of charge. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.wifss.ucdavis.edu/good-ag-neighbors/.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:47-07:00May 24th, 2019|

Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month

In U.S., One-Third of all Available Food Goes Uneaten Through Loss or Waste.

News Release Edited By Patrick Cavanaugh

Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) kick off Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month by calling for greater collaboration with public, private, and nonprofit partners as well as state and local officials to educate and engage consumers and stakeholders throughout the supply chain on the need to reduce food loss and waste.

In the U.S., more than one-third of all available food goes uneaten through loss or waste. Food is the single largest type of waste in our daily trash. In recent years, great strides have been made to highlight and mitigate food loss and waste, but the work has just begun. When food is tossed aside, so too are opportunities for economic growth, healthier communities, and environmental prosperity—but that can change through partnership, leadership, and action. Further elevating the importance of this issue, the recent announcement follows a Presidential Message from President Trump acknowledging the month of April as Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month and encouraging public action and participation from all sectors.

“Reducing food waste and redirecting excess food to people, animals, or energy production provide immediate benefits to public health and the environment. I am proud to join President Trump and my federal partners in recognizing April as Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said. “We are working closely with our federal partners and stakeholders across the nation to reduce the amount of food going to landfills and maximize the value of our food resources.”

“USDA alone cannot end food waste, it will require partners from across the supply chain working together on innovative solutions and consumer education. We need to feed our hungry world, and by reducing food waste, we can more wisely use the resources we have. I am pleased President Trump identified this issue as one of importance, and I look forward to USDA’s continued work with our agency partners at EPA and FDA to change behavior in the long term on food waste,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said.

“With 1 in 6 people getting a foodborne illness every year in the U.S. and up to 40 percent of food left uneaten, it’s understandable why food safety and food waste are major societal concerns,” FDA Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas said. “The FDA is working to strengthen its collaboration and coordination with the EPA and USDA to strategically align our federal efforts between the two issues to better educate Americans on how to reduce food waste and how it can be done safely.”

As part of the month’s observances, on April 9, EPA will host a live-streamed event with USDA and FDA. Additional joint agency actions will be announced at the event regarding the Winning on Reducing Food Waste Initiative. At the event, a panel of food waste stakeholders will share how state and local communities can join the federal government in reducing food waste and loss.

USDA, EPA, and FDA invite public and private partners to participate in Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month through the following:

Join the conversation: Share your efforts with the #NoWastedFood hashtag in your social media posts throughout the month.
Educate your community: Learn about USDA, EPA, and FDA programs and resources to reduce food loss and waste.
Be a U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champion: Join other corporate and business leaders who have made a public commitment to reducing food loss and waste in their U.S. operations by 50 percent by the year 2030.

The Winning on Reducing Food Waste Initiative is a collaborative effort among USDA, EPA, and FDA to reduce food loss and waste through combined and agency-specific action. Individually and collectively, these agencies contribute to the initiative, encourage long-term reductions, and work toward the goal of reducing food loss and waste in the United States. These actions include research, community investments, education and outreach, voluntary programs, public-private partnerships, tool development, technical assistance, event participation, and policy discussion.

California Ag Today2019-04-08T16:37:18-07:00April 8th, 2019|

Curious of How Safe is Fresh Produce?

Residue Calculator Helps Public Understand How Safe Food Is

News Release

Recently, we have shared new government residue sampling results from the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR). These programs consistently show that 99% of the foods sampled had no detectable residues at all or residues found were well below safety levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

For those who do not want to review these lengthy government reports, the Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF) created an easy-to-use “residue calculator” on safefruitsandveggies.com, which is based upon the USDA data. We asked toxicologists with the University of California Personal Chemical Exposure Program to analyze this data. Their findings: A child could literally eat hundreds to thousands of servings of a fruit or veggie in a day and still not have any health effects from residues. This analysis shows how very minute residues are, if present at all.

The residue calculator features 19 of the most popular fruits and veggies, and you can click on a man, woman, teenager, or child to see the number of servings one would have to consume. For example, a child could eat 181 servings or 1,448 strawberries in a day and still not have any effects from residues. Apples? A child could eat 340 apples in a day. Kale? 7,446 servings!

These government reports and the UC toxicological analysis underscore the diligence of fruit and vegetable farmers when it comes to the judicious use of pesticides approved for organic and conventional crops.

“… Growers and farmers are adept at following our comprehensive rules to ensure produce is grown to the highest pesticide standards,” said Brian Leahy, Director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

“Based on the PDP data, consumers can feel confident about eating a diet that is rich in fresh fruits and vegetables,” concludes the USDA report.

Read, learn, choose but eat more organic or conventional fruits and veggies for better health and longer life.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:50-07:00January 11th, 2019|

CDPR: 96% of Produce has No Residue Or Far Below EPA Levels

CDPR Releases New Residue Results

News Release

Recently, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) released its 2017 Pesticide Residues in Fresh Produce report. During its 2017 survey, CDPR found 96 percent of all samples had no detectable pesticide residues or residues were below levels allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The CDPR report complements the recently released United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Pesticide Data Program results which found 99% percent of the foods sampled had no detectable residues or residues were well below EPA tolerances. The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also conducts pesticide residue sampling. FDA results mirrored the USDA’s.

The FDA, USDA and CDPR reports all concluded that these residue results should provide consumers with confidence about the safety of eating fruits and vegetables.

All three government reports garnered very little attention. However, this is reassuring food safety information that consumers should know. Instead, they often receive inaccurate assertions about residues carried by activist groups promoting one production method over another.

The Alliance for Food and Farming supports consumer choice by providing science-based facts to help them make the right shopping decisions for themselves and their families. Whether they choose organic or conventional produce, consumers should know that when it comes to residues, both production methods yield safe produce that can be eaten with confidence.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:06-07:00January 7th, 2019|

FDA Releases Possible Factors for 2018 E. Coli Outbreaks

Leafy Greens Industry and Public Were Severely Impacted

By Hank Giclas, Western Growers Sr. Vice President, Strategic Planning, Science & Technology

Recently, 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 approach; and factors potentially contributing to the introduction and spread of E. coli; along with recommendations for the prevention E. coli in leafy greens.

FDA recommends that growers and processors of leafy greens:

assure that all agricultural water (water that directly contacts the harvestable portion of the crop) used by growers is safe and adequate for its intended use (including agricultural water used for application of crop protection chemicals);
assess and mitigate risks related to land uses near or adjacent to growing fields that may contaminate agricultural water or leafy greens crops directly (e.g. nearby cattle operations or dairy farms, manure or composting facility);
verify that food safety procedures, policies, and practices, including supplier controls for fresh-cut processors, are developed and consistently implemented on farms (both domestic and foreign) and in fresh-cut produce manufacturing/processing food facilities to minimize the potential for contamination and/or spread of human pathogens;
when a foodborne pathogen is identified in the growing or processing environment, in agricultural inputs (e.g., agricultural water), in raw agricultural commodities or in fresh-cut, ready-to-eat produce, a root cause analysis should be performed to determine the likely source of the contamination, if prevention measures have failed, and whether additional measures are needed to prevent a reoccurrence; and
Local in-depth knowledge and actions are critical in helping resolve potential routes of contamination of leafy greens in the Yuma growing region, including Imperial County and Yuma County, moving forward. FDA urges other government and non-government entities, produce growers and trade associations in Yuma and Imperial Counties to further explore possible source(s) and route(s) of contamination associated with the outbreak pathogen and with other foodborne pathogens of public health significance. This information is critical to developing and implementing short- and long-term remediation measures to reduce the potential for another outbreak associated with leafy greens or other fresh produce commodities.

The findings in the Environmental Assessment appear to provide little new information but will be closely reviewed by Western Growers and others as part of our industry’s ongoing efforts to ensure food safety.

Immediately after the outbreak, Western Growers collaborated with the leafy greens industry to help lead a task force that would assess the source of the outbreak, as well as develop recommendations to prevent future outbreaks. While sources of contamination remain uncertain, the task force made concrete recommendations to industry for assuring water is safe and adequate, assessing and mitigating risk from adjacent land uses as well as others to address risks from equipment and climatic conditions. These recommendations go well beyond the requirements of the FDA’s own Produce Safety Rule and have already been incorporated into the California and Arizona LGMA requirements. State auditors are now charged with verifying adherence to these new controls through announced and un-announced audits that occur throughout the seasons. The industry is furthering its efforts to learn more including through research guided by respected entities such as the Center for Produce Safety and working directly with California and Arizona academic teams. There is a strong and broad commitment to continually work to improve our food safety system.

Other related information posted by FDA includes:

Commissioner Gottlieb’s statement
https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm624867.htm
Environmental Assessment
https://www.fda.gov/food/recallsoutbreaksemergencies/outbreaks/ucm235425.htm
Letter to State Agriculture Officials (under CFSAN Postings)
https://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofFoods/CFSAN/CFSANFOIAElectronicReadingRoom/default.htm
Outbreak closing
https://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm604254.htm
Memo of investigation
https://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofGlobalRegulatoryOperationsandPolicy/ORA/ORAElectronicReadingRoom/UCM624633

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:08-07:00November 9th, 2018|

Product Recall Awareness

Social Media Can Hurt a Company

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Product recall coverage has a publicity element. California Ag Today recently spoke with Caitlin McGrath, national product recall and contamination risk consultant with Lockton Insurance Brokers, about the importance of the topic.

Caitlin McGrath, with Lockton Insurance Brokers.

Product recall coverage’s publicity element can be adverse, with the accusation of contamination coming into play.

“The example I always use is a mom who puts online a food item that made her kid sick, and this gets shared 100,000 times. You get calls from your customers, supermarkets, and drug stores asking you to stop sending your product,” McGrath said.

If products are not selling, that can be a very significant loss.

“Most recalls are voluntary. They have to be reported to the FDA if they are going to cause bodily injury or property damage,” McGrath said.

She suggests having an internal communication and external communication setup. Be aware of what testing labs you are going to use, what PR companies you are going to use.

Many times, companies try to execute their recall and are not ready for the customer demands.

“Sometimes customers are coming to them and saying, ‘you owe us all this money,’ ” McGrath said. “It is important to have the plans for the whole logistics of the recall.”

California Ag Today2018-06-11T16:31:23-07:00June 11th, 2018|

Industry Serious About Produce Safety Rule

CDFA Announces New Produce Safety Program

By Scott Horsfall, CEO of Leafy Green Marketing Agreement

Reprinted from the LGMA Website

CDFA announced recently the creation of a new unit within its Inspection Services Division which will be responsible for educating California produce farmers about new Produce Safety Rule regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act and for conducting routine on-farm inspections of California produce farms to verify they are in compliance.

Scott Horsfall

According to a CDFA press release, this new unit, called the Produce Safety Program, will spend 2018 educating California’s produce industry about the requirements of the Produce Safety Rule. On-farm inspections will not take place until 2019. At that time, the Produce Safety Program will begin conducting inspections of California produce farms on behalf of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Produce Safety Program inspectors are employees of CDFA, but are credentialed by the FDA and thus have special training and education. The CDFA is working collaboratively with FDA to implement Produce Safety Rule regulations, as are State Departments of Agriculture throughout the country.

The new requirements of the Produce Safety Rule became mandatory throughout the nation on January 26th for farms designated as “large” which means they have $500,000 or more in annual sales. Most farms who grow leafy greens under the LGMA would be characterized as large under this definition. Smaller farms will be phased in over the next few years. In total, it’s estimated there are some 20,000 fruit, vegetable and nut farms in California that will fall under the Produce Safety Rule.

CDFA emphasizes it will be a big job and has stated it will need to work closely with the California produce industry to achieve its goal of 100% compliance with the Produce Safety Rule on California Farms.

The LGMA has been working closely with both the U.S. FDA and CDFA to ensure our food safety program works in conjunction with efforts to enforce the Produce Safety Rule.

Last August, the LGMA Board approved revised metrics so that our required food safety practices are in full compliance with the Produce Safety Rule. We have since received confirmation from FDA that these revised metrics do indeed align with the requirements of the new regulations. In many cases, the LGMA metrics continue to go beyond what is required by FDA. Working from the revised metrics, CDFA will begin using an updated audit checklist that is Produce Safety Rule-compliant checklist for all LGMA government audits beginning April 1.

Because of these actions, CDFA has informed us that California farms who grow leafy greens for certified LGMA members will be considered compliant with the Produce Safety Rule.

More details will be coming as we get closer to April 1, when the LGMA’s new compliance year begins. In the meantime, we want LGMA members to know that FDA will be able to validate compliance with the Produce Safety Rule on farms who grow your leafy greens without the need for additional and duplicative inspections when Produce Safety Program begins inspecting farms in 2019. CDFA has recognized the efforts of the LGMA to establish a culture of food safety on the farm and they acknowledge that mandatory government audits are already taking place on California leafy greens farms who operate under the LGMA.

As a reminder, under the LGMA program, every handler-member continues to be audited by the government an average of five times over the course of the year—with one unannounced audit—and every farmer is audited at least once per year.

This recognition by government agencies at FDA and CDFA is welcome news to the LGMA, our members and produce buyers. The LGMA is pleased to see the addition of this new unit at CDFA to provide government inspections throughout California’s produce industry. And we look forward to additional oversight provided by the Produce Safety Program to further validate that leafy greens are being farmed safely.

California Ag Today2018-02-08T17:54:24-08:00February 8th, 2018|

FSMA Requirements Must Be Addressed

FSMA Requirements Must be Understood and Documented

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

When it comes to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), there are now some big changes for food processors, farmers and farm employees.

“One of the things we’re seeing that has changed as of recently, mainly due to the Food Safety Modernization Act, is there are standardized curriculum requirements within what we call the food processor rule, or the preventive controls rule, but now that’s going back to the farm in what’s called the produce safety rule,” said Jeremiah Szabo, vice president of operations for Safe Food Alliance, a division of DFA of California.

“These rules are actually regulations that have been published and finalized by the Food & Drug Administration, and there are federal regulations, of which the states are going to adopt and manage and regulate,” Szabo said.

“One of the things we’ve been doing, and what our organization has been preparing for, is really beefing up the number of trainers we have on staff, their qualifications, sending them to lead instructor courses as we did, actually, starting about a year ago,” he said.

“We were involved with becoming lead instructors, and we have lead instructors on staff, to offer the preventive controls qualified individual training for food processors, which is a mandatory requirement when it comes to education requirements for those individuals at every food processor site that will manage their food safety system,” Szabo said.

The training includes documentation, record-keeping and education of staff working at those facilities, as well as their supply chain management and sanitation practice management.

Szabo said that the two-and-a-half day training has been successful. “As of March of 2016, we’ve conducted about 20 of those food processor trainings in California and other states.”

“They’ve been really successful,” he said. “I think the practicality that comes with those courses is really important for the industry to hone in and to learn about how regulators are going to be expecting food facilities to document their food safety plan, as well as implement their food safety plan in their facilities.

Szabo noted that as the Safe Food Alliance was rolling out the preventive controls for qualified individual training, there were FDA and state regulators present in the training to learn about the preventive controls along with the industry. “This was good because the industry could hear from both sides of the aisle,” Szabo said.

On the farm side of the FSMA rule, farms not exempted from that rule will require eight hours of standardized training. “It involves things that are mentioned in the regulations, such as employee qualifications and education when it comes to personal hygiene for those employees that are interacting with the harvest activities, as well as the produce itself,” Szabo said.

For farms, there are eight modules of training, including worker health and hygiene and soil amendments, as well as agricultural production and post-harvest water quality.

“We’ve also partnered with the California Farm Bureau and their Farm Employee Labor Services Association to offer the training to farm supervisors and farm managers, as well as anybody else on the farm who are managing farm food safety plans and training and education,” Szabo said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-02-01T19:33:27-08:00February 1st, 2017|

Livestock Economics for Western Producers

Livestock Economics: What Attributes Bring Higher Prices?

By Laurie Greene, Editor

At the 100th Annual California Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) & California CattleWomen’s (CCW) Convention last week in Sparks, Nevada, Tina Saitone, cooperative extension specialist, UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, described her research on rangeland and livestock economics. “Primarily, my focus has been on cattle — beef cattle to date — but I’ve also started some projects recently with sheep producers and the predator interactions they have specifically with coyotes. I am examining whether or not [producers] can use nonlethal depredation methods to mitigate those losses.”

“Right now, I have been concentrating on marketing characteristics of cattle,” she said. “I study those practices employed by producers, such as when they wean their cattle; how many vaccinations they have; whether they market [their cattle] as natural, grass-fed, or organic; and the impact that [these choices] have on their prices.”

Tina Saitone, cooperative extension specialist, UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Interestingly, Saitone and her colleagues have mainly been using satellite video auction data. “Western Video Market Auction actually held their auction this month here in Sparks, Nevada because they can do it at different locations all the time. So, we use that data to figure out cattle characteristics and then determine the marginal impact that each of those characteristics has on price,” said Saitone.

Characteristics such breed, frame score, flesh score, and weight, are definitely controls in Saitone’s research model because those are main drivers of price. “But what we want to do is figure out — holding all those things constant —if a producer raises their cattle natural, what kind of premium does that bring them? We’re really looking for that incremental difference.”

One might expect certain factors such as natural or organic, to deserve a higher price, but there always has to be a buyer. “Right now, when prices are low relative to 2014 and early 2015, ranchers do have some opportunities to get some higher prices in what we would call niche markets. Consumers are increasingly demanding a wider range of characteristics. They want grass-fed. They want organic. They want natural, no hormones. All of these are what we would call credence attributes. If you go to the grocery store and you taste a steak, you probably don’t know if it was raised natural.”

Accordingly, the industry has third-party certification to assure consumers that when they pay a higher price for that product they are actually getting those traits. “Farmers actually have the ability to fill some of those niche markets that consumers have created with their demand and possibly get higher prices than just selling into traditional commercial channels.”

The data that Saitone has been looking at from Western Video is focused on Western states, including California. Certainly, location places Western producers at a persistent disadvantage because the majority of the processing capacity is in the central part of the country, with Nebraska being the hub. Saitone said, “When you think about cattle being raised in California having to be transported all the way to Nebraska, some 1600 or 1700 miles, not only do you have the cost associated with that transportation, but you also have shrink; you have mortality.

California Cattlemen’s Association (CCA)

California CattleWomen

UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:11-07:00December 6th, 2016|

Safe Food Alliance Helps Farmers Cope with MRL Disharmony

California Farmers Cope with MRL Disharmony

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

California farmers are careful with crop protection products because they know the importance of producing safe and wholesome food for their customers across the nation and in their export markets. “However, I think that there are some real challenges facing growers in California today,” said Thomas Jones, senior analytical services director for the Fresno-based Safe Food Alliance.

“As growers send their commodities around the world, they’re facing increasing challenges of knowing the right chemicals to apply and at what levels. We have our own strict regulations within California, if needed, [that govern] not only the application but also the maximum residue levels (MRL) or tolerances allowed for various crops,” said Jones.

Thomas Jones, senior analytical services director, Safe Food Alliance

“That’s also carried onto the federal level; we have very strict EPA regulations. But as we [export] into other countries, they may have entirely different regulations,” said Jones. He noted this could be confusing not only to farmers, but also to registrants of crop protection materials because there is a lack of standardization of MRLs in different countries.

“Historically, there was the CODEX system, a UN-based system geared towards a more international standard for pesticide residues. It was very thought out, and very scientifically based,” Jones said.

However, as Jones explained, many countries do not want to follow the important scientific standard. “Increasingly, we are seeing countries want to establish their own systems, their own tolerances. They may be responding to their own political pressures within their countries.”

“We are seeing a process called ‘deharmonization’ in which every country wants to establish its own positive list of what is allowed and what is not allowed in [farm] products. Sometimes, those are in agreement with U.S. regulations and California state regulations; sometimes they are not. So it is important that [our] growers know not only what is legal in this country and in our state, but also what is allowed in their target [export] markets.”

Jones commented it is now known that some of these marketers [apply] random low MRLs and keep other MRLs high on some of their own products in order to get a marketing edge. “Some of those MRLs may or may not be based on any scientific standards.”

“There are a number of great tools out there,” he said. “There are a number of great software programs. Obviously, anything that [information growers] can get out of the print media or any educational courses are really essential. It is important to work with your Pest Control Adviser (PCA), as well. It’s important that [farmers] know what they are up against, as far as growing these crops,” said Jones.

The Safe Food Alliance is available to growers to help them qualify to meet the standards in the U.S. and abroad. “We [provide] training twice a year on fumigation safety for the various processors of dried fruits and tree nuts. We focus particularly on commodity fumigations and on what treatments are allowed and not allowed. We also have a full-service pesticide-testing laboratory and are very aware of the requirements in these other countries, so we’re happy to help both processors and growers with our monitoring efforts,” noted Jones.

Featured Photo: For these California-grown peaches to be shippable to any out-of-state U.S. consumers or international export markets, they must meet scientific Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs).

C O D E X A L I M E N T A R I U S, the international food standards, guidelines and codes of practice contribute to the safety, quality and fairness of the international food trade. Begun in 1963, Codex standards are based on the best available science assisted by independent international risk assessment bodies or ad-hoc consultations organized by Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO). Consumers can trust the safety and quality of the food products they buy and importers can trust that the food they ordered will be in accordance with their specifications.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:44-07:00November 28th, 2016|