Jeniece Pettitt
The California LGMA regulates lettuce, spinach, cabbage, arugula, chard and other leafy greens.
WASHINGTON –The federal government is considering a national program patterned after California’s public-private agriculture partnership that regulates food safety for lettuce, spinach and others greens, which farmers in Imperial Valley and elsewhere in the state – as well as around the country – hail as a major success.
At the 2010 Food Safety Summit in Washington in mid-April, hundreds of food industry workers from around the world debated ways to ensure food safety. The California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement – known as LGMA – was cited as one success story.
The LGMA was formed after the catastrophic 2006 E. coli outbreak, in which more than 200 people were hospitalized and three died as the result of tainted California spinach.
“We have to realize the consequences that can occur with an inadequate food safety program,” said Thomas Mack of Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc. at a Food Safety Summit seminar. “We are providing products that, if not properly handled, could result in death.”
Within six months of the E. coli outbreak, California handlers who dealt with leafy greens formed the California LGMA, a program that incorporates science-based food safety practices with oversight from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, including mandatory government inspections by USDA-trained auditors.
The spinach industry suffered a loss of more than $200 million, even though only one California company was linked to the E. coli outbreak.
Joe Pezzini, COO of Castroville, Calif.-based Ocean Mist Farms said that the industry is still recovering four years later, especially since there was a ripple effect to other bagged leafy green products.
The LGMA is a efficient and effective example of a public-private partnership and is an example that could be emulated by others in the food business, said John Spink, instructor at the National Food Safety Toxicology Center at Michigan State University.
Other industries have followed the model. Arizona formed its own LGMA in 2007. The tomato and mushroom industries are looking to create a similar program, said Scott Horsfall, California’s LGMA CEO.
In Washington, Congress is considering legislation to create a national LGMA, which Horsfall predicts will pass sometime this year.
Public-private partnerships like the LGMA offer a way to bring competing interests together to ensure food safety, producers said.
“All the competitors, we sat together in a room, for the good of the industry, for good for the consumer,” said Jack Vessey of Holdville, Calif.-based Vessey and Co., a leafy green grower. “We needed to get together to raise the bar.”
Joining the LGMA is voluntary and the producers pay to be regulated. The cost is approximately 2 cents per box of product harvested, according to Pezzini, who is also board chairman of the California LGMA. There are no legal requirements to join, but once a company joins it is bound by law to follow the rules.
“As growers, we pay a fee for every case of produce,” Mack explained. “… That was what was needed in order to insure confidence in the safety of our product.”
Now more than 100 leafy green handlers, representing most of the California leafy greens production, are regulated by the LGMA. Canada and Mexico only import leafy greens grown and shipped by LGMA members, as well as a variety of grocery stores and restaurants, according to Horsfall.
LGMA members are audited at least once a year and must document all farm activities.
“The culture of the industry has really changed,” Horsfall said. “If you go out to these fields, they are almost like factories. You could eat off the rows, everyone is wearing hair nets, this culture of food safety really does exist.”
Unlike private audit companies that give companies a score, LGMA members have to fully comply, Pezzini said. Occasionally a member gets decertified, but is given a chance to correct the problem. Nearly 2,000 inspections have taken place in California under the LGMA standards, Horsfall said.
“Everyone back in D.C. is talking about what to do about food safety,” Horsfall reflected on his experience at the Food Safety Summit. “This is really an unprecedented thing for an industry to come together, tax itself, invite the government in to regulate it in order to raise the bar for food safety.”
Horsfall said he is not aware of any food-borne illnesses linked back to California leafy greens since the program was implemented.
With produce, there are different risk factors that require different safety standards depending on the product. For instance, leafy greens require more rigorous standards because they grows on the ground and appear on grocery shelves just as they were harvested.
“There are lessons that can be learned from leafy greens that can be applied or modified for other commodities,” said Ray Gilmer with United Fresh Produce Association, “but it can’t be can something that is unilaterally adopted across the board for all crops.”
LGMA members would like to see their principles adopted in other industries to help deter disasters like the 2006 spinach outbreak.
“But it is important that there is government oversight,” Pezzini added. “We believe we’ve put together the most rigorous food safety program in the U.S. right here in California.”