Produce Archives - Page 2 of 12 - California Agriculture News Today

Safe Food Alliance Helps Keep Food Safe

Standard is Parts Per Billion Today

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

California Ag Today recently spoke with Mark Mariani, executive chairman of the Mariani Packing Company in Vacaville and outgoing chairman of the Safe Food Alliance, which recently opened a new laboratory in Kingsburg to provide further research into food safety.

Mark Mariani

“We’ve been members since 1946, and the fact that the produce industry is self-policing is very unique,” Mariani said.

“The reason why we enjoyed the DFA and now the SFA is the fact that we are very concerned about food safety and so we are in a very unique industry in the sense that we self-police ourselves and so this is not something new. We’ve been doing it for over 100 years,” he explained.

“It’s not the new trend, and so being part of the DFA and SFA gives us the opportunity to not only look at the way we do our practices in our manufacturing practices, but also it gives us an opportunity to look at how we test our products,” Mariani said. “And back in the day, we used to be happy with one part per million detections of something. Today, we’re insisting on one part per billion.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:11-07:00June 14th, 2018|

Labor Contractor Fresh Harvest Deep in Vegetable Harvests

Fresh Harvest Relies on H-2A

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Steve Scaroni, along with his wife Brenda, owns Fresh Harvest, a premier labor provider, staffing and harvesting company for the agricultural industry in the western United States.

Steve Scaroni, with Fresh Harvest.

“Expansion for Fresh Harvest is coming, but the main emphasis is crops related to salads. They even expanded into citrus last year,” Scaroni said.

Fresh Harvest has also expanded into pears. Vegetables are the heart and soul of Fresh Harvest.

“Anything that goes into a salad, a lot of lettuce, romaine, broccoli; we touch a lot of salads every day,” he said.

The H-2A temporary agricultural program allows agricultural employers who expect a shortage in domestic workers to bring non-migrant foreign workers to the U.S. to perform agricultural services for a temporary or seasonal nature.

“If it wasn’t for H-2A, I wouldn’t be in business,” Scaroni said.

Scaroni explained that the H-2A gets legal workers to serve his customers demands for the services he offers. A majority of the demands are labor and harvesting, along with other farm services.

“We’re bringing up 100 irrigators this year to put throughout the Salinas Valley because our Salinas customers can’t get enough irrigators,” he said.

Laborers that show great work ethic will be able to work for a longer period of time. A worker could technically stay if moved from contract to contract.

“If the timing works, he gets up to three years, but then he has to go back for 90 days,” Scaroni said.

California Ag Today2018-06-07T15:50:41-07:00June 7th, 2018|

H2-A is Only Legal Solution For Labor Without Immigration Reform

H2-A is Heart of One Farm Labor Contractor

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

H2-A employees are the heart of one major farm labor company. Steve Scaroni owns Fresh Harvest, a premier labor provider and staffing and harvesting company to the agricultural industry and the western United States. But the company’s main emphasis has always harvested crops related to salads; they have also expanded into permanent crops.

“Last year, we started citrus and pears, and we will continue to expand in vegetables with anything that goes into a salad, lots of head lettuce, romaine, and broccoli, which is what we have been doing for a long time,” Scaroni said.

And then we touch a lot of salads every day. The H2-A temporary agricultural program allows agricultural employers when anticipating a shortage in domestic workers to bring non-migrant foreign workers to the US to perform agricultural services for a temporary or seasonal nature.

Steve Scaroni

“If it wasn’t for H2-A, I wouldn’t be in business. I mean that’s the only way to get a legal worker into California to serve my customers demands for the services we offer, which is mostly labor and harvesting,” Scaroni said.

“And we’re even starting to do a lot of farm services. We’re bringing up 100 irrigators this year to put throughout the Salinas Valley because our Salinas customers can’t get enough irrigators,” he said.

Being a labor contractor has its difficulties. It takes a lot of work. It’s a very bureaucratic process-driven application process.

“Laborers that show great work ethic will be able to work for a longer period of time. A worker could technically stay if I can move it from contract to contract, and I can keep the temporary employee for three years,” Scaroni said. “But then he has to go back for 90 days, but it’s very hard to time the contracts for that to work.”

“So most guys, they’ll do five, six, seven months. They’ll go home before they can come back. And then the guys that are really good workers with and a great attitude and really get it done for us. We’ll move to another contract. Will even retrain them in a different crop if they have the right attitude and work ethic,” he said.

California Ag Today2018-05-08T17:11:52-07:00May 8th, 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|

Tom Stenzel Says Produce Safety Critical

California Ahead of the Curve on Food Safety

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Tom Stenzel, President and CEO of the United Fresh Produce Association, a lobbying group in Washington D.C., recently spoke with California Ag Today about new developments in food safety as well as some recent issues in regards to labor.

“Our industry’s been revolutionized in the commitment to food safety over the last ten years. Everybody from the ground up through the processing facilities … it’s our number one priority. The same time, the feds have these new rules and regulations that are coming out with some compliance states starting now in 2018, so we’re just trying to make sure that it is reasonable enforcement that the Feds understand as they’re looking at farms, looking at processing facilities, that we’re in this together. Ultimately, all of us just want to make sure that consumers have safe food,” Stenzel said.

Stenzel said many producers in California are already ahead of the curve when it comes to food safety.

“I mean, you look at the leafy greens industry on the Central Coast: They’ve been ready for a good while with very high produce safety standards,” he noted. “But … there’s some areas across the country where it’s going to be a little bit more challenging. But that’s OK, too, because everybody wants to raise their game. They want to make sure that we’re doing everything we possibly can to deliver safe food.”

Stenzel noted that labor is a big issue, especially in California.

“The number one issue I’m hearing across the country from fruit and vegetable agriculture is the shortage of labor. Now for us, the solution – it’s going to be two parts. It’s got to be a new future guest worker program, and for that, we really thank U.S. Congressman and Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte for raising the issue [and] pushing a bill. It’s not everything we want to see, but at least he’s raising his head on that issue,” Stenzel said. “However, we need to deal with the current workforce.”

“We also need to have a bigger commitment to get legal status for those who are already here. These are men and women who’ve been here for twenty years,” he explained. “This is their home where they have raised their families, they’ve got children who are U.S. citizens and they’re working in our fields. We can’t deport them. That doesn’t make sense as a country and certainly not as an agricultural industry.”

California Ag Today2018-01-16T17:42:29-08:00January 16th, 2018|

California Represented at Fresh Summit In New Orleans

PMA Fresh Summit Happening Now, Oct. 19-21

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

The Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit brings together produce and floral industry leaders, retail buyers, food safety experts and importers and exporters from around the globe. A thousand exhibitors representing over 60 countries are at the Fresh Summit in New Orleans this week.

Alex Ott

“It’s a great opportunity to continue to meet with consumers and buyers and get the message out about the availability of California produce,” said Alex Ott, executive director of the California Apple Commission, California Blueberry Commission and the California Olive Committee told us about the Summit.

The Buy California Program will be a big part of the Fresh Summit this year, and Ott noted that it has been very positive for California apples and blueberries and olives.

“Getting the message out that California isn’t just Hollywood, but a big agricultural state as well, and we are there representing apples, blueberries and olives.

Regarding the 2017 blueberry crop, Ott noted that harvest went well and prices were good, however the price for processed blueberries were down this year.

“We were running about 10 days behind this year, but overall it was a very comparable year to last year as well. Not all the final numbers are in yet, but the fresh market was very, very good. Processed was not good,” Ott said.

“There was a lot of fruit out there and the processed prices were down significantly. And that had a huge impact on how many blueberries actually went to processing,” he said.

“The other unfortunate incident at the beginning of the year, is a lot of our friends in Georgia and some of the other southeast States, experienced a freeze, which impacted the crop, but on the other hand, was … good movement for California fresh blueberries,” Ott said.

California Ag Today2017-10-20T15:43:22-07:00October 20th, 2017|

LGMA Partners with Stop Foodborne Illness Group

Leafy Green Marketing Agreement Aids Decline in Citations

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Scott Horsfall, CEO of LGMA

After a severe E. coli outbreak in 2006, California farmers created the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement (LGMA) in 2007 to help prevent foodborne illness. Scott Horsfall, LGMA CEO, addressed the critical role LGMA currently plays in California agriculture, “If you are going to be in the leafy greens business, in particular, you are going to have to invest in what it takes to put a food safety program in place.”

“LGMA has partnered with a group called Stop Foodborne Illness, a national nonprofit, public health organization dedicated both to the prevention of illness and death from foodborne pathogens and to its victims. These two groups collaborated to create a video that is used in all training workshops. The video not only tells them why food safety is important, it shows them.”

Citations for foodborne pathogens in recent years have declined. Most of the citations are noted as minor infractions or minor deviations.

“They are not threatening public health; sometimes they indicate an oversight in having some documentation on hand, or something along those lines,” Horsfall said.

“Yet, there are still a handful of major deviations that are more significant and are treated differently,” Horsfall said. “Auditors are required to go back out, but if [the situation] is flagrant, they will go back out within a week to make sure that all corrective actions that were submitted are actually put in place.”

Links:

California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement (LGMA)

Stop Foodborne Illness

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:58-07:00September 19th, 2017|

Farmers Appreciate Leafy Green Marketing Agreement

Leafy Green Marketing Agreement Raises Bar

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

The Leafy Green Marketing Agreement took huge steps in the advancement of food safety.

Scott Horsfall, CEO of the California of the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, said, “In 2007, there had never been government inspectors on the farm on a routine basis related to food safety.”

Many other regulators such as the Department of Public Health would often check in on businesses. However, there had never been a routine food safety oversight program on the farm.

Farmers joined this agreement voluntarily. “All of these companies that have joined, and been in the program since 2007, they do so voluntarily, and they pay the freight,” Horsfall said. This raises the bar for food safety and provides value to the industry.

Farmers, who were wary at first, came back to Horsfall saying, “They sleep better at night knowing that they’ve got this program in place, that the auditors are going to be there.”

The California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement continues to improve. Every year, the numbers are studied to see what areas have a continuing problem.

“We have used that to decide what to create in a training program. We hope that we’re helping the industry to better comply with these standards as we go along too, by offering the training,” Horsfall said.

For more information, visit the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement web page.

California Ag Today2017-09-14T16:03:16-07:00September 14th, 2017|

LGMA: A Decade of Protection – Part 1

California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement Now 10 Years Old

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Scott Horsfall, CEO of California Leafy Green Marketing Agreemen

After a severe E.coli outbreak nearly a decade ago, California took steps in ensuring the safety of consumers through the creation of the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (LGMA). We met with Scott Horsfall, CEO of the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, which is managed by the CDFA, to talk about the topic.

“The Marketing Agreement was actually created February of 2007. The outbreak was in the fall of 2006 and then, for a few months, the industry worked with the government to figure out what to do, and they created this Marketing Agreement,” Horsfall said. “The Marketing Agreement was moving fast and in the right direction. The leaders of the industry came together or appointed to that initial board of directors. With the little staff, it was those people and their internal staffs who did all the heavy lifting.”

The outbreak was the driving force behind the creation of this Marketing Agreement.

“They saw the impact that the tragic outbreak had on businesses, consumers, and on individuals. The will was there on the part of the industry to do something quickly and I think they brought in the people who had the expertise,” Horsfall said. “The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) were there with the marketing agreement option. Also there was the Western Grower’s Association, Produce Marketing Association and United Fresh. They were all putting up their best people to figuring out a solution.”

California Ag Today2017-09-06T15:05:59-07:00September 6th, 2017|

Raley’s Wants More Fresh Produce

Raley’s Owner Mike Teel On California Farmers

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

California Ag Today recently had an exclusive conversation with Mike Teel, the owner of the Raley’s Supermarket chain, which has 135 locations throughout California and Nevada. We asked him what he’s looking for in terms of the produce produced by farmers in California.

“We’re looking for fresh, and any new products that could be in development, because that’s what differentiates us from the rest of the competitors,” Teel said.

“You know, there are new products coming on, and while most of them are not in the produce and fresh arena, there are interesting ways to combine and bring fresh produce and different combinations for our consumers. We’re a great chain for that, because we’re not too big, but yet not too small,” Teel explained.

Teel told us that Raley’s being based in California does have an advantage in being close to the farming industry. “It does make it easier for us to get it into the market faster,” he said.

And Teel said that consumers want to know more about the produce they’re buying. “Today’s consumer wants to know where their food comes from, and who’s producing it,” Teel said.

“They want to have somewhat of a relationship, even if it’s just the knowledge of who they are, particularly if they’re a family business, and so we try and highlight that,” he continued. “We have great relationships with our producers.”

Teel added that consumers would like to see an image of the farmer on the package. “I think they want to see that. They want to have a connection with the source of their food, and so any way that we can convey that to our consumer, whether it is with photographs or information at point of sale, or highlighting them in an ad, where it be online or on television. I think it resonates with the consumer.”

California Ag Today2017-09-02T23:14:31-07:00August 18th, 2017|