Food Safety - Produce Traceability (Left and Right agree?)

Vanity | Jan. 22, 2010 | Self

[BillCompton]

I would like some opinions on where the following stands from a Political (left/right) point of view.

Currently, when cartons of produce (tomatoes, etc) arrive at a grocery store, very little information is available about where the product came from and how it got there. This is how almost the entire tomato industry was shut down in the summer of 2008 Wikipedia link. 257 people were hospitalized and one person died. The tomato growers were financially devastated. It turned out to not be tomatoes at all (Mexican jalapeño peppers.) The CDC had 50 people trying to trace through the shipping documents to narrow down where the problem came from. They basically said "it could have come from anywhere. Shut down everything." There existed no way for the investigators to narrow anything down, so the scope kept expanding.

Should the government mandate traceability labels on each carton of produce? The knee-jerk Conservative point of view is no. But suppose terrorists decided to target the produce industry. Suppose they kind of went into the freight hauling business and they poisoned five truckloads of various produce in various places. Currently, it is a dead certainty that we would have to throw away all produce in the entire country. Plus, how could we keep it from happening again a month later? We couldn't.

The produce industry has created the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) in response to the problem. It calls for every carton of produce to have a standard barcode that identifies the packing house (where the produce was put into the box) and giving it a serial number. Then, they must keep electronic records that track what field/farm it came from and where it was shipped (you must be able to provide the FDA with traceability information within one hour in the event of an investigation). If all cases had these barcodes on them, you could quickly narrow down who could possible be involved. There would be no need to shut everything down. There would likely be false positives, but almost all of the industry could be excluded for the recall. Within hours, the problem could be identified as having to do with trucks and the FBI could be hot on their trail.

I am interested in the opinions here.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Local farmers market operations may complain about having to go through a burdensome rigmarole when it’s usually obvious to the consumer where the produce came from. We also want to be sure we do not inadvertently (or otherwise) outlaw produce from home gardens for private or neighbor consumption.

[palmer]

This will work about as well as stopping terrorism on airlines by stamping every passenger with a barcode on their forehead.

[Drill Thrawl]

Nice idea until you find that the gubment will want to require that ANYONE who grows ANYTHING for consumption will have to abide by this law.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Should the government mandate traceability labels on each carton of produce? The knee-jerk Conservative point of view is no.

Since when??!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

What we need is UPC code on each individual tomato that is tracked every step of its way from field to home refrigerator.

Just think of all the government jobs that would be created!

[geologist]

If we can not drink the water south of the border ... how can we eat the produce?

Out food has undergone many changes. The use of pesticides has made it seriously poisoned.

How else does all the beautiful fruits and vegetables survive the growing season?

Perhaps the hydroponic businesses are doing and producing safer foods.

Mad cow disease is ignored; and so is the milk/cheeses made from the milk.

How to eat safely? Grow it ourself?

Organically grown farms?

God help us in our day, in Jesus name, amen.

[BillCompton]

Local farmers market operations may complain about having to go through a burdensome rigmarole when it’s usually obvious to the consumer where the produce came from. We also want to be sure we do not inadvertently (or otherwise) outlaw produce from home gardens for private or neighbor consumption.

They actually would not have to comply. The gatekeeper would be the retailer and food service companies. Private sales and produce stands would be excluded (it would be easy to trace them. It is when 1200 trucks come into a Wal-mart distribution centers and then get broken up and shipped to 2000 Wal-mart stores. It is impossible to track what actual path the produce took and which truck it came in one, etc.

[BillCompton]

This will work about as well as stopping terrorism on airlines by stamping every passenger with a barcode on their forehead.

So we should not have security for Airports? It has been pretty effective, just no perfect. But it is surely better than nothing.

[BillCompton]

Nice idea until you find that the gubment will want to require that ANYONE who grows ANYTHING for consumption will have to abide by this law.

If you were a terrorist and you had a suitable poison and 20 NON-suicide volunteers, how hard would it be to get some of them jobs as truck drivers? How hard would it be to say "ok, today we are going to poison everything in each of your trucks." Have you thought about the implications?

[BillCompton]

What we need is UPC code on each individual tomato that is tracked every step of its way from field to home refrigerator.

Just think of all the government jobs that would be created!

This can already be done. Google Harvestmark. But it does not track distribution. It just allows the consumer or anyone to see where the produce was packed. It doesn't track it through the distribution. The industry has targeted cartons, not individual pieces of fruit.

[BillCompton]

Where’s the cheese posts so we can have a laugh?

[John.Galt2012]

Power grab plain and simple. Two quotes to sum up my thoughts succinctly:

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people,” -Henry Kissinger

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin

The Supreme Court has already stated that Congress can regulate what a farmer grows. Imagine an out-of-control Govt. that can legally take your property (home grown food) and not allow you to sell, trade or consume it without specific permission and or proper documents. When fiat currency no longer holds any value...food and water will.

[1rudeboy]

What we need is UPC code on each individual tomato that is tracked every step of its way from field to home refrigerator.

The tomatoes at the stores where I shop (Jewel-Osco, and an outfit named Angleo Caputo's Fresh Markets) are stickered individually.

With regard to the larger picture, though, I believe the stickering is voluntary.

[1rudeboy]

oops - - Angelo

[John.Galt2012]

They actually would not have to comply ... Private sales and produce stands would be excluded

United States government imposed its first personal income tax, on August 5, 1861, as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 3% of all incomes over US $800...flat tax...that lasted a long time. Don't give the Gubment anymore power! For any reason...period. IMHO

[Ellendra]

So we should not have security for Airports? It has been pretty effective, just no perfect. But it is surely better than nothing.

Binary logic in an analog reality.

[Drill Thrawl]

"If you were a terrorist and you had a suitable poison and 20 NON-suicide volunteers, how hard would it be to get some of them jobs as truck drivers? How hard would it be to say "ok, today we are going to poison everything in each of your trucks." Have you thought about the implications?"

And this idea would do NOTHING to stop a terrorist from doing that. All that would happen is the govt would be able to trace where the terrorists did their dirty deed but it would not prevent a darn thing.

[palmer]

It has been pretty effective, just no perfect.

So that system works? If, in many cases, airline passengers can handle their own security, then surely food consumers can look out for their own interests.

Private enterprise works better. If airlines had their own security and competed on security, flying would become immediately safer. Similarly if people have a choice they will pay the added prices for secure food. The problem with the Feds running it is that everyone pays more and the food is NOT more secure.

[tiki]

I remember the tomato thing, that was bad. Although it is going to be a real pain, it could save our bacon if something like the tomato scare happened with our crop. Our margin is so slim that something like that would probably put us out of business and if we could prove it wasn’t from our farm quickly it could save us.

As a produce grower we have to do it whether we like it or not. We have to keep records of everytime the field is entered for any reason and what was done.

Much of what we have to do we have already been doing, but now we will have to post signs about everything, our fields will look like the sides of highways.

We have always forbid glass bottles in the field and anyone who gets caught with one has to leave and not return. We will probably have to hire someone to police them and make sure they are washing their hands if that isn’t against the law.

In our 38 yrs thing have changed a lot, we do much less physical labor and much more bookwork. I do the financial, my son does all the other record keeping and business communication, my husband and son do all the planning and labor, it is more than full time for all of us and we only have 300 acres in production.