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.

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

MRL Issues for Exporting Crops Worldwide

Challenges of MRLs on Exported Crops

By: Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

California farmers are careful with agricultural crop protection products because it is critical that they produce safe and wholesome food for their customers across the nation and the export markets.

“I think that there are some real challenges facing growers in California today as they send their commodities around the world. They’re facing increasing challenges of knowing what the right chemicals are to apply and on what levels” said Thomas Jones, Senior Analytical Services Director for the Safe Food Alliance, a division of DFA of California.

Thomas Jones

“We have our own strict regulations within California, not only for the application, but also for the maximum residue levels (MRLs) that are allowed in various crops. That is also carried on to the federal level.  As we go into other countries, they may have entirely different regulations,” Jones said.

It can be confusing to not only farmers, but to registrants of materials, because there’s a lack of standardization on the MRLs in different countries. “Historically, there was the CODEX system, which was a UN-based system, gearing towards a more international standard for pesticide residues. Very well-thought out, very scientifically-based,” Jones explained.

Increasingly, many countries don’t want to adopt the CODEX system. Those countries wish to set up their own system and tolerances. “They may be responding to their own political pressures within their countries. We are seeing a process called de-harmonization, in which every country wants to establish its own positive list of what is allowed and what is not allowed in products,” Jones said.

Some of these countries have systems that agree with the U.S. and California state regulations; others, not so much. Jones said, “It is important that the growers not only know what is legal in this country and in our state, but also what is allowed in the target markets that they’re looking at.”

Other marketers in areas such as the European Union are creating their own standards due to consumer pressure. “Some of these marketers put on random low MRLs on some of their own products and keep them high on the others in the store. It’s all about getting a marketing edge,” Jones said.

“Some of those may or may not be based on any scientific standards. Anything that they can get out of the print media or an educational course is essential. It is important to work with your PCA, as well. It is important that they know what they’re up against as far as growing these crops” he said.

DFA of California is available to growers to help them qualify to meet the standards in the U.S. and abroad. “We have training programs. We do training twice a year on fumigation safety for the various processors of dried foods and tree nuts, particularly in terms of commodity fumigations and what treatments are allowed and not,” Jones said. “We also have a full-service pesticide testing laboratory and are very aware of the requirements in these other countries, so we are happy to help both processors and growers with our monitoring efforts.”

 

 

2017-01-31T23:39:19-08:00January 31st, 2017|

Pesticide Expert Brian Leahy Has Respect for Weeds

Brian Leahy Reminds Growers About DPR’s Mission

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Brian Leahy is the Director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR). Leahy was among the first organic rice growers, and he said he had a very intimate relationship with weeds. “I have lot of respect for weeds, and a lot of respect for weed management. So, with that, we know that weeds are an important challenge in agriculture and in our over society,” he said.

Brian Leahy

Leahy noted that herbicide solutions are very cost effective when they work, but they come with challenges. “And those challenges include the Department of Pesticide Regulation. We are a science-based organization. We have about 400 employees; 300 of them are classified as scientists. We have well over 100 Ph.D.s, we have people with graduate programs from three different continents.”

“We are a very science-based organization. We have very good scientists, but we also incorporate what we call Risk Management. So myself, along with my chief Deputy Director Christopher Reardon, take a look at what the scientists do, and we make risk management decisions. I think it is an important role,” Leahy said. “We use a lot of data, and we are very good at collecting data. Our core mission, of course, is to protect the environment and human health. That is at the center.”

Leahy noted that farm workers and farmers have the closest contact to pesticides, as do folks who are helping with cleaning, such as custodians and janitors.

“But that is our main mission, and it includes the community,” he said. “California has done a remarkable job of building on farmland and adjacent to farmland. We have schools, houses, hospitals, daycare centers, all very close to farmland that uses pesticides. So we have focused on protection of human health as well as how we use pesticides.”

“I would really emphasize farm worker protection, the long-term studies on pesticides show that the folks most at risk are the handlers,” Leahy said.” Of course the other big thing we are supposed to do is protect our environment. That is actually getting to be a much more challenging endeavor. It includes our water quality, it includes pollinators, and off site movement.”

“The third component of our mission has been to foster reduced-risk pesticides. That can take all kinds of forms. We have been engaged in landscaping in this state, because we know which plant in your front yard or backyard is going to determine which pesticides and herbicides you need to use,” Leahy said. “IPM tells you to look at your environment, so we are encouraging that. We are looking at cultural practices and ways to reduce the reliance on pesticides. So that is a part of our mission as well.”

One the most important relationships DPR has is with the county ag commissioners. “Recently, I spent the day with the County Ag Commissioner of Monterey County – a very challenging position,” Leahy said. “We met a couple of Board of Supervisors, we met with labor folks, we met with public health officers, and we met with the superintendent of the school district, which has a lot of schools in the middle of farms. She also has a student population where 11 percent are homeless, some of the poorest students in the state in her school district. She is trying to ensure that her children are safe as they learn. And her relationship with her County Agricultural Commissioner is very important.”

“These County Agricultural Commissioners put about 300 biologists in the field to do pesticide enforcement and education. Enforcement is very important, education is even more important. So, we give them somewhere around $27 million a year to run their pesticide program. They do a very good job. So that is a very important relationship we have,” Leahy said.

Leahy explained that DPR and CDFA have a very vigorous pesticide residue-testing program here in the state. “We test more products than the Federal government does. We look at what might be our biggest challenges and found … cactus from Mexico with residues of Organophosphate materials, which [were] banned in the ’60s. If you ate them, it would make you feel like you had the flu. So we have begun to target what we think are some of the most problematic crops in countries,” he said.

“We are starting to do enforcement, going after retailers and brokers. They have no business selling food that will make people sick,” Leahy said. “It is not a good business practice, and we need to make sure they get that message.”

“It also helps us with enforcement. On a very rare occasion, we will find a California grower who used a pesticide that should not even be on that crop,” Leahy said. “If that happens, we will go in and have them destroy the crop, fine them and get them to realize that it is probably wise, probably in their best interest. But it is a very important tool. What we have found is the most important thing is simply working together. We build very strong relationships with the farmers, the farm workers, the registrant community, with all the stakeholders. And there are a lot of stakeholders in pesticide.”

Leahy said that pesticides are kind of a challenging business because what they are doing is changing human behavior. “If we want to ensure that if you are producing food, you have the tools that you need; we simply want to make sure that those tools do the job and don’t keep moving and doing harm to your neighbors, yourself or the environment. But this collaborative approach is the only one that works, and we want to do that; a lot of active listening.”

Product registration is a very important part of the DPR program. Leahy said that introducing a new active ingredient into the market is a half-a-billion dollar endeavor. “There are years when we don’t see a new active ingredient. And other years, maybe you see four, which is a big number. Not a lot of new herbicides coming into the marketplace. And every time something comes in, there is a change, either a new AI or a even a new use. There are a lot of people looking at that,” he said.

“I can tell you that the water community looks very closely at pesticides. Every time we try to introduce something new, something to control ants or something to control weeds, they want reassurances that it is not going to end up in the water supply, in the storm water, in the drinking water, all of it. The water community are our partners, so we have to listen to them.”

“Then we have all of the stakeholders like the Center for Biological Diversity and all those folks that really care about environmental issues, and they will sue you very quickly if they feel like there is going to be a challenge to one of their critters. So it is challenging to get in new chemistry. This is kind of a cautionary tale that the ag industry must be sure to use materials correctly. Resistance management should always be on our minds,” he noted.

“A number of things have made us successful. I talked about the registration process, looking at the chemistry, and getting a really good idea of how that chemistry is going to behave in the human body and the environment before we put it in.

“Looking at it as we go, we have an incredible system to collect data. We try to capture every pesticide illness in the state. We work hard to do that. We listen to people who have complaints and issues and we follow up and so we can direct our science to determine how to make it better,” Leahy noted.

Recently, the National Academy of Sciences looked at the DPR program. According to Leahy, one of the things that they said was that DPR was “incredible at mitigation, which basically means that they figure out how that pesticide moves off-target.”

“We have made an amazing amount of progress. Society is always asking us to go further, and we will. This is a plug once again to remind you that weeds and insect pests are quick at adapting, that resistance is a real issue. We don’t want to lose tools because they are hard to replace. So mix it up,” Leahy said.

“As we all know, there is no silver bullet for resistance – there are multiple ways of preventing resistance -so just keep that in mind. … We want to keep the tools that we have, but we want to be able to use the new ones and the core of that is a prevention program,” Leahy said.

 

 

 

2021-05-12T11:02:00-07:00January 30th, 2017|

Fresno County Growers Grateful For Rainfall

Rainfall Helps Water Cover Crops

By Brian German, Associate Broadcaster

The amount of rainfall the state has already received comes as a delight for many growers.  Joe Del Bosque, Commissioner of the California Water Commission, noted how appreciated the rainfall has been.  “It’ll help replenish the moisture in our fields. We also have some cover crops growing that need rain and some dry land wheat that we’re growing that needs some rain,” Del Bosque said.

Del Bosque is also the president and CEO of Empresas Del Bosque Incorporated, a diversified farming operation on the west side of Fresno County in Firebaugh.  He talked about a cover crop he’s got going for their organic melons. “We plant it in the wintertime. We don’t irrigate it because we can’t afford to buy water for a cover crop. We plant it in the wintertime so the rains will provide for it, then we mulch it in the spring and then plant our melons,” Del Bosque said.

That cover crop also helps to build tilth and adds important organic matter to the soils, really helping those organic melons grow.  The success of that cover crop depends largely on the amount of rain, which is much better this year than many years prior.  “It’s good for the trees to get wet, to get cold and go into dormancy. There have been years where we didn’t get hardly any rain in January. We couldn’t put on our dormant sprays because the bark was dry. This year we should be able to do that,” Del Bosque said.

It cab be a bit of gamble planting the cover crop, but it seems to have paid off for Del Bosque this year.  “Absolutely, yeah, if we don’t get rain, we don’t get a crop because we can’t afford to buy $1,000 water for our cover crop. We have to save that for our main crop,” Del Bosque said.

Del Bosque said they have laid about a third or more of their acreage fallow because they don’t have adequate water to grow anything on it; but idling farmland has its own set of consequences: “We found that laying land idle because of a lack of water for two or three years in a row starts to hurt that soil. So we decided recently to try putting in dry land grain just to keep something growing on that land and keep it alive.”

At the Empresas Del Bosque farm, they grow cantaloupes, almonds, asparagus, cherries and tomatoes on about 2,200 acres.  Del Bosque expressed his hopes that almond prices will stabilize after so much fluctuation.  “They came down a lot from 2015. They firmed up a little bit. We hope they don’t go down any further. … That’s the thing that, when we were selling almonds for $4 a pound and paying $1,000 water, we were coming out okay. Now that the almonds are $2 a pound, we can’t afford $1,000 per acre foot of water. We hope the cost of water comes down significantly this year so that it comes out all right.”

2017-01-26T20:48:25-08:00January 26th, 2017|

Pyrethroids Under Review

EPA Reviewing Pyrethroids

Ag Industry Urged to Comment

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

The pyrethroid insecticide class is in review for ecological risk assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency. John Cummings, Registration and Regulatory Affairs Manager at chemical company FMC believes that the assessment could have a large impact on producers.

Agricultural leaders have urged all to comment on the need to keep this chemistry available.  Please share your thoughts by clicking here.

“At FMC, we’re very concerned with the content of that risk assessment that they’ve identified that there’s high risk concerns to certain aquatic organisms, not necessarily fish or anything like that, but small aquatic organisms,” Cummings said. “Our concern, as a company who manufactures these pyrethroids, which are used in California, is that the EPA has not used the best science that’s available. They’ve done a very high level simple cursory risk assessment that has identified these concerns.”

More than 3,500 registered insecticides contain a pyrethroid. Many pyrethroids are household products and are not limited to agricultural usage.

“Our hope, as a pyrethroid company, is that EPA will consider better data which FMC and our industry consortium, the Pyrethroid Working Group, are developing to incorporate into this risk assessment. We need the EPA to look at the real world of how these products are used. With that, that risk assessment should look much better and remove any of these risk concerns that EPA currently has,” he said.

There have been other actions conducted by the EPA around the use of the best available data and the best science in risk assessment. These kind of precedents will impact production agriculture in the U.S. as well as California.

“EPA should be using the best science to make the right regulatory decisions while protecting the environment,” Cummings said. “It is very important, and I think it’s important, too, that EPA understand the implications of taking a conservative approach and making regulatory decisions that may impact production. I think EPA needs to understand how important it is to consider the benefit of production agriculture in feeding the world.”

It is important to keep many pest control products available to prevent the overuse of one product. Pesticide resistance is a growing problem, and it is essential that producers are able to keep all of their options open.

“Pyrethroids are a very important element of integrated pest management, as well as resistance management. Growers today are facing very complex insect control problems,” Cummings said.

“It’s necessary to have many tools in the toolbox to control insects. We have multiple classes of chemistry, but based on regulatory decisions, the EPA could potentially remove some of these important tools, which puts more pressure on other tools that remain in the toolbox, and insects may become resistant to many of these tools,” Cummings explained.

“Pyrethroids are a critical broad spectrum insecticide that are very affordable and control a lot of different insects that are economically important,” Cummings said.

Bob Klein, the manager of the Pistachio Research Board, agrees that pyrethroids are essential to pest management.

“The use of pyrethroids goes hand-in-hand with the use of soft chemicals like the growth regulators, or some of the neonicotinoids, or some of the other new chemistries we have,” Klein said.

“It guards against resistance development in those other chemicals as well. The inclusion of pyrethroids by the University of California, and many other Integrated Pest Management manuals, shows that pyrethroids are an important part of any IPM program. IPM programs are the way that people control pests in their orchards,” Klein said.

The risk assessment is currently open for comment and will remain open until March 31st.

Comment: Here

 

 

 

2021-05-12T11:05:43-07:00January 26th, 2017|

Federal Milk Marketing in CA May Increase Prices

Federal Milk Marketing Order to Help CA Dairies

By Melissa Moe, Associate Editor

California is getting closer to being included in the federal milk marketing order. The state has been operating on its own state order for decades. Up until the past few years, most producers have been content in operating under a state system. However, recently California has been failing to keep up with prices that are being paid for milk in other parts of the country.

Rob Vandenheuval is the Manager of the Milk Producers Council, with offices in Ontario (CA), Bakersfield and Turlock. The Milk Producers Council is a nonprofit that represents the California dairy industry.

“We’ve made a lot of progress, and we’re looking forward to, hopefully, an announcement out of the USDA sometime early this year. The next step would be the first draft of what that order would look like and the opportunity for the industry to then comment on it,” Vandenheuval said.

Producers believe that inclusion in to the federal order is going to result in California producers getting a milk price that’s more in line with the prices that are paid all over the country. This level playing field will help producers compete in the national market.

“We’re competing. We’re not on an island. We are part of the U.S. National Domestic Dairy Industry, and we compete with dairy farmers in Arizona and Washington and Wisconsin and Florida and New York. So, we need to update our regulations that oversee our milk pricing to keep them in line with what’s going on in the rest of the country. Rather than try to mimic what the federal order’s doing, it seems prudent to actually join the federal order system,” Vandenheuval said.

However, inclusion into the Federal Milk Marketing order may still be a long way off. California’s inclusion may be many producers’ saving grace, but it may not come soon enough to save producers that are struggling to stay in business today.

“We’re not going to get on that level playing field we talked about with federal order until sometime in the 2018. There’s a lengthy process and a vote, and then, even once it’s implemented, once it’s approved, it has to be implemented here in California, so that is more than a year away before that all gets shaken out,” Vandenheuval said.

The end of 2016 saw milk prices in an upswing, and many producers are hopeful that the rise in prices may be enough to keep them in business for the time being.

“Feed costs have been modest, and so with some additional strength in the milk prices, I think we could at least see a 2017 that is profitable as opposed to what 2015 and 2016 represented,” Vandenheuval said.

2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00January 25th, 2017|

Citrus Industry Fighting Argentine Lemons

Argentine Lemons May Bring Disease

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

California lemon growers are feeling the squeeze due to the startling news of the USDA’s ruling to allow Argentine lemon imports into the U.S. Those lemons from Argentina could be carrying an invasive insect, along with a disease not found in California.

“It’s a big concern,” said Joel Nelsen, President of the California Citrus Mutual based in Exeter. One of the main issues of concern is the citrus black spot and a certain mite that can vector another citrus disease called leprosis. “I’m not too worried about the Huanglongbing disease from Argentina because fruit doesn’t vector that, but the mites, they hide under the calix end of a naval orange, and the citrus black spot is on the surface of skin, and there’s no known cure for either one of them” Nelsen said.

Of course, neither this pest or disease is present in California’s agriculture. Nelsen thinks that, “being a fresh-oriented industry, both of those two – pest and disease – could be very detrimental to our fresh production in California. We’re very disappointed with the USDA ruling.”

Citrus with black spots would be quite the eyesore in the produce aisles of California. “It’s a vehement disagreement between the USDA and us. Citrus black spot does exist in Florida,” Nelsen said. “It was introduced there, but no one knows how. It was discovered, and it has been spreading. Now, instead of having one block of fruit, one county, you have over a dozen different counties with citrus black-spotted citrus.

“It’s not as draconian in Florida as it would be here because the Florida product is mostly juice, whereas ours goes fresh” Nelsen said. “No consumer wants to go to the store and find black spots on citrus. Plus, the disease leads to early decay on the exterior of the fruit. It would be a devastating disease to us.”

2017-01-15T22:45:31-08:00January 15th, 2017|

Orange County Farm Bureau Endowment

$1 Million Endowment For Orange County Farm Bureau

By Melissa Moe, Associate Editor

The University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Orange County Farm Bureau have partnered up to ensure agricultural education activities in Orange County are funded for years to come through a million-dollar endowment.

Glenda Humiston, Vice President of UC Ag and Natural Resources had this to say about the recent partnership: “What Orange County Farm Bureau did today by creating an endowed chair, putting half a million dollars into the endowment – which was matched by [UC President Janet Napolitano] with another half million – is going to create an endowment that’s going to fund agricultural education activities in Orange County and the surrounding region for decades to come.”

The UC is hoping that it just doesn’t stop in Orange County. Partnerships like the one made in Orange County could benefit counties all over the state.

“This is a way for us to make sure the resources we need are there and that they’re targeted for the needs identified by individuals at their local area,” Humiston said.

Humiston said the UC worked very closely with Orange County to determine how that endowment would work.

“A million-dollar endowment typically will create between $40,000 and $45,000 a year. In this particular case, what Orange County Farm Bureau designated was for the funding to go to the director of the South Coast Research Extension Center. That director will use it for agricultural educational programming at the site,” she said.

 

 

2017-01-12T14:54:00-08:00January 12th, 2017|

Combatting The Water Board’s Plan

Water Diversion Could Cause Businesses to Leave, Group Says

By Brian German, Associate Broadcaster

The State Water Resources Control Board recently held a public hearing to receive input on its Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. The proposal would force the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts to dedicate 40 percent of unimpaired flows along the Tuolumne River to benefit fish and wildlife. David White is the CEO of Opportunity Stanislaus, a company that is all about improving the economic vitality of Stanislaus County.  He noted how the proposal will negatively impact the local economy.

“We’re going to lose at least 14,000 jobs, good paying jobs. … They didn’t take into consideration all the processors we have here,” White said.

The Bay-Delta Plan is required to be updated every three years by the State Water Board. The purpose is to identify the best use of water supplies and set quality objectives for the Bay-Delta. The Plan also establishes a system of implementation for achieving those water quality objectives. The effects of the proposal would be detrimental to some of the major operations in the area.

“You talk about E. & J. Gallo. You think about Del Monte, Seneca, Stanislaus Food Products. We have multi-billion dollar companies here that depend on water as their life blood. If they don’t have their water … they might have to leave. They’re going to have to go where they can find that natural resource,” White said.

Historically, Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts have managed surface water and groundwater in a natural, interdependent manner to keep groundwater quantity and quality sustainable.  Because of their policies, both districts’ groundwater sub-basins are the only ones in the San Joaquin Valley that not listed in conditions of critical overdraft. The current proposal from the State Water Board would make it nearly impossible for the region to establish groundwater sustainability. It will also cause some operations to consider relocating.

“You can’t process food without water, and you can’t build an economy, you can’t sustain an economy like we have here, without water. It’s a vital resource,” White said.

Opportunity Stanislaus is an economic development organization that provides services to businesses that will help them expand and succeed.  “Our job is to help local businesses grow, help attract new businesses and help really drive a workforce, helping to improve the workforce here locally,” White explained.

Fighting back against proposals like the one from the State Water Board is exactly what the organization stands for.  “We’re totally behind defeating this. … Our board, our investors, we’re all about trying to sustain our local economy,” White said.

For more information go to https://worthyourfight.org

 

2017-01-10T21:18:33-08:00January 10th, 2017|

Borlaug: Innovation is Critical to Scale up Food Production

If  You’re  Anti-Innovation, Bring a Solution!

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

The use of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, is an important topic to many consumers. We recently talked with Julie Borlaug, granddaughter of Norman Borlaug who earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contributions to world food production and supply, to shine some light on volume of contradictory information available.

Julie Borlaug said, “I think our industry has not done a good job communicating and being transparent. The first [GMO] products we brought were not really for the consumer; they were more for the farmer. We also had scientists doing the speaking, and that is just not great. I mean, to moms, female voices are really more important.”

Julie Borlaug

Julie Borlaug

Borlaug noted the preponderance of public misinformation can be a serious problem. “I saw something a few years ago by the Food Babe where she was telling people not to buy frozen vegetables because they were not healthy. That is totally incorrect. You are telling someone who is low income and who wants to provide vegetables and nutritious food for their child, that the option for frozen food is off the table and they can buy only fresh organic. They don’t have the capacity to do that. That is just false. That is fear, and I have a really big issue with that,” noted Borlaug.

California Wheat, Borlaug

California Wheat

In addition, many non-government organizations (NGOs) condemn the use of GMOs. Nevertheless, the use of genetically modified wheat varieties has helped to transform agricultural production in Mexico, Asia, and Latin America, thanks to Norman Borlaug.

Like her grandfather, who established the World Food Prize thirty years ago, Julie Borlaug supports proactive action, rather than spreading misleading information. “You cannot be anti-hunger and anti-innovation. If you are against innovation, bring a solution to the table,” Borlaug said.

“Quit spending millions and millions of dollars on PR campaigns that sell fear and hate, and create chaos. Come with a solution of your own, because we’re open to any system as long as we can feed people and the food is healthy, sustainable and nutritious,” she said.

2017-07-20T19:45:01-07:00December 7th, 2016|

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