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BREAKING NEWS: Another Multistate E. coli Outbreak is Linked To Lettuce
The FDA is warning consumers against eating any romaine lettuce harvested from Salinas, California. The CDC is now reporting 40 people infected with the outbreak strain from 16 states, hospitalizing 28 of them
AUTHOR Cathy Siegner
Nov. 22, 2019
UPDATE: Nov. 22, 2019: The FDA is warning consumers against eating any romaine lettuce harvested from Salinas, California. The CDC is now reporting 40 people infected with the outbreak strain from 16 states, hospitalizing 28 of them.
Dive Brief:
Another E. coli outbreak linked to lettuce has sickened 17 people in eight states, hospitalizing seven of them, according to a Nov. 21 Investigation Notice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said Maryland Department of Health officials found E. coli O157 in an unopened package of Ready Pac Foods Bistro Chicken Caesar Salad taken from a sick person’s home. Some of the sickened people in Maryland reported eating that product, while those in other states have not, the agency said.
On Nov. 21, Missa Bay, LLC, of Swedesboro, New Jersey, recalled 75,233 pounds of salad products sold under various brand names due to possible E. coli O157:H7 contamination. The CDC said the recalled products, which have "Use By" dates ranging from Oct. 29, 2019, to Nov. 1, 2019, contained lettuce from the same lot used to make the contaminated salad found in Maryland.
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Dive Insight:
The CDC announced this latest outbreak more quickly than the last major incident — an E. coli outbreak associated with romaine lettuce that sickened 23 people in 12 states between July 12 and Sept. 8. Illnesses were reported from Sept. 24 to Nov. 8, the CDC said, and the agency's announcement came Oct. 31.
The FDA posted its own announcement Nov. 21, noting it was tracing back the supply of romaine lettuce in the Caesar salad product and had identified possible farm sources in Salinas, California. The agency also said it was sending investigators to determine the source and extent of contamination and would provide more information as it is uncovered.
Most of the recalled salad products were made with romaine, but a few also contained iceberg lettuce. The contaminated Ready Pac Foods Bistro Chicken Caesar Salad in Maryland only contained romaine. The CDC said Maryland health officials are using whole-genome sequencing to determine whether the pathogen they found is closely related genetically to the one that has sickened people.
Bonduelle Fresh Americas, which owns the Ready Pac brand, said in a Nov. 21 statement posted on its website the recalled salad products are already significantly past their use-by dates, and the company is working with retailers to make sure they're no longer on store shelves. Bonduelle also said it had taken immediate action to trace the origin of the problem.
"We test all of our leafy greens (including romaine) in the fields prior to harvest, including screening for E. coli O157:H7. During the relevant time frame, we did not have any positive test results for E. coli O157:H7," the company said.
As federal and state health officials conduct this outbreak investigation, they would be wise to keep the public fully informed, and quickly. Romaine lettuce has now been linked to five E. coli outbreaks in the past two years, including this latest one and the one announced in late October. If regulators and producers don't get a handle on the problem soon, romaine could become an unwanted commodity. The industry has already been hit by decreased sales following previous outbreaks, so this development is likely to bring further scrutiny to their operations.
The FDA recently said it will start sampling romaine for E. coli and salmonella bacteria this month in the California and Arizona growing regions and during the next year. Since the agency said contaminated lettuce in the most recent outbreak could have come from farms in the Salinas, California, area, that region could see additional sampling and testing as the investigation proceeds.
Previous romaine testing by the FDA — which collected 118 samples starting last December in the Yuma area and tested them for E. coli and salmonella — found a non-pathogenic type of E. coli in one, but no salmonella, the agency reported.
The leafy greens industry has recently taken steps to improve production processes. Producers have tightened up grower requirements and recently embarked on a multi-year food safety initiative involving government, academia, and industry to better understand the impact of pathogens on leafy greens in areas including Yuma County, Arizona, and the Imperial Valley in California.
While these steps may help narrow down the problem's source, they clearly haven't been enough to keep E. coli outbreaks linked to lettuce from happening. Until that occurs, consumers are likely to avoid romaine — and possibly other lettuce types — in stores or restaurants until they can be sure the product is safe.
Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Recommended Reading:
U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION Investigation Notice
Pressure To Revoke Certification of Containers Continues At Fall NOSB Meeting
Multiple groups push USDA to revoke certification for organic production systems with containers during most recent National Organic Standards Board meeting cycle
Multiple groups push USDA to revoke certification for organic production systems with containers during most recent National Organic Standards Board meeting cycle
The June 3 USDA memo summarizing the land-use history requirements has not slowed down the efforts of opponents to organic production systems incorporating containers into their farms. Several organizations including retail organizations belonging to the National Organic Coalition in their written and verbal comments for the Fall NOSB meeting continued to call for revocation of certifications of operations using containers. Multiple members of the NOSB went so far as to call for the decertification of seedling facilities that produce transplants for vegetable growers if those facilities rotate greenhouses where raised tables are located during the course of the year between organic and non-organic potting soils in the containers. However, USDA continues to stand firm on the June 3 memo and has not placed the issue of containers on the work agenda of the NOSB nor USDA staff.
CSO reaffirms sensible application of USDA organic standards in Washington and at the NOSB meetings
Members of the CSO met with members of Congress and the USDA as well as testified in front of the NOSB over the last few weeks to reiterate the importance of containers to help meet their obligations as growers under the organic requirements of conserving natural resources. CSO members and staff reminded officials on the importance of organic containers in conserving wildlands by reducing the footprint of fruit and vegetable production, minimizing nutrient runoff from farming operations, increasing the efficiency of water use, enhancing the effectiveness of beneficial insects and generally helping growers properly respond to the site-specific conditions on their farms.
Frankel urged USDA and the NOSB to avoid making false statements regarding the production practices of container growers, especially when making policy decisions. Frankel also presented data showing that the June 3 memo was not raising prices yet was stifling supply increases as growers and marketers are withdrawing investment, promotion, and research necessary to build fresh produce categories as a result of uncertainty surrounding how policy is interpreted and made.
Indoor Ag Seen As Key To Feeding Planet
Sponsored by the Department of Agriculture; its subsidiary NIFA (National Institute of Food and Agriculture), and the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, over 100 attendees of all stripes --- from growers and governmental entities to students and researchers --- met for 4 days to come up with a master plan designed to help in the goal of feeding a hungry planet
A prototype greenhouse for use on lunar or Mars missions is displayed at a recent conference on food production at Southern Arizona’s famous Biosphere2 research laboratory.
Open-field production faces limitations in land, labor, and resources
Lee Allen | Sep 25, 2019
It’s been said that a camel is really a horse that has been assembled by a committee after much discussion and lots of diverse input.
But sometimes great minds do think alike as in the case of the recent Controlled Environment Indoor and Vertical Food Production Coordinated Research Conference held at Southern Arizona’s world-famous Biosphere2 research laboratory.
Sponsored by the Department of Agriculture; its subsidiary NIFA (National Institute of Food and Agriculture), and the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, over 100 attendees of all stripes --- from growers and governmental entities to students and researchers --- met for 4 days to come up with a master plan designed to help in the goal of feeding a hungry planet.
“Open field agriculture in the U.S. is the largest in the world aimed at feeding the largest number of people, but there are limitations in land, labor, and resources,” said co-coordinator Gene Giacomelli, estimating that the current greenhouse-grown vegetable effort represents slightly more than 1.3 million acres under glass.
“We want to compliment that food production capability by solving some of the problems of indoor growing to produce greater yield and enhanced nutrition.”
Plenty Inc. of San Francisco was one example in the form of keynote speaker Nate Story, Chief Science Officer and co-founder of the 2013 start-up funded in part by $200 million in backing from investors like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
EMERGING INDUSTRY
Already touting that Plenty is “Where Nature Meets Nurture” and promising to close the global nutrition gap, Story said his indoor grow efforts represented “an emerging industry trying to control costs while bringing high-quality product to market --- a difficult thing to do. We need to focus on research in order to help the industry drive value up and cost down by being both systems- and crop-specific.”
Story called plants “the smartest creatures on the planet because they have figured out how to make humans their slaves by domesticating them and spreading them all over the world. Once we understand the economics of indoor agriculture, this industry is going to be a boon for humanity.”
Over the course of the conference, 33 speakers told of their research successes and remaining problems in trying to grow things better, faster, and cheaper with discussions ranging from nutrition and post-harvest concerns to production systems and pest and disease management.
Audience interest was piqued with presentations on new technologies in plant breeding and how feeding folks in outer space may provide some suggestions on how to better accomplish that mission on the ground.
Noting that plant breeding has been around since the early days of crop domestication, Gail Taylor, Plant Sciences Chair at the University of California, Davis campus said the process took a quantum leap once DNA was explained.
“Today, generally involving big crops in outdoor environments and refinements in programs involving disease, pest management, stress tolerance, and increased yield, there’s a lot going on there, and by snipping away at plant DNA, adding to or taking away from, we can make new products that both outdoor field and indoor vertical farming can take advantage of.”
BREEDING SUCCESSES
Citing breeding program research successes like uncovering a gene that allows peppers to be more easily harvested mechanically to extending the shelf life and increasing the antioxidant properties of lettuce, Taylor said that modern breeding techniques allowed a new start to improving nutrition, flavor, and yield.
While some breeding successes have been noted in dwarf or super-dwarf crops as well as those that are more robotics-ready for mechanical management, the search continues for more vigorous, rapid, high-yielding traits that are faster flowering with a shorter life cycle and more efficient use of nutrients and depleted carbon dioxide.
Genetics research is on-going to produce plants with more appropriate architectures that will lend themselves to more efficient mechanical supervision and harvesting, produce that will maintain a longer shelf life, as well as crops that are cleaner because of less chemicals and healthier because of secondary phytochemicals.
“We struggle with the same issues that greenhouse growers and indoor vertical farms do in looking at food security, keeping astronauts operating at peak performance on long-duration missions,” said Ralph Fritsche, Senior Crop Project Manager in NASA’s Life Sciences Office.
Earlier space missions where crews were kept busy at work stations on their way to the moon didn’t have much time to plant something and grow it to harvest, but longer duration flights like those to Mars will allow the growing of plants, much of it done by automation as is happening in today’s terrestrial indoor and vertical grow efforts.
“Right now, NASA is taking from current CEA knowledge and technology with a pay-if-forward mentality. Once we find solutions to similar problems in space, light bulbs will light up in the CEA industry on how these answers can be applied on earth.”
HURDLES FOR FRUIT
Based on the presentations, nearly half of the attendees contributed concepts to a grant application workshop involving funding opportunities to support further research.
“Most of the currently-funded projects deal with leafy greens, but there are still major hurdles for profitable production of fruiting crops,” said Dr. Kai-Shu Ling of the USDA Vegetable Laboratory.
“We will work together to prepare, hopefully before the end of the year, a proposal for submittal to the USDA/NIFA Specialty Crop Initiative Research program to establish a coordinated agricultural project for controlled environment agriculture research, a roadmap for indoor food production agriculture in the United States,” said Ling.
To which Giacomelli added: “This report, interfacing all seven themes of the conference, will not be a report that gathers dust.”
USDA - NIFA Conference Sept. 9 - 12, 2019
Developing sustainable and strategic plans to feed the future in the face of growing global challenges will demand interdisciplinary vision, collaboration and innovation
USDA - NIFA Conference At Biosphere 2
September 9 - 12, 2019
Developing sustainable and strategic plans to feed the future in the face of growing global challenges will demand interdisciplinary vision, collaboration and innovation. Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) implemented as fully enclosed, multi-level indoor agricultural food production systems, Vertical Farms (VF), will complement future greenhouse (GH) plant production systems and will offer innovative technological solutions for issues at the food-energy-water nexus.
The purpose of the conference is to Plan an Interdisciplinary Controlled Environment Indoor Agriculture R&D Roadmap and Coordinated Research Plan. It is supported by USDA/NIFA-AFRI program and is hosted by the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ and Biosphere 2, Oracle, AZ
This conference (September 9 – 12) will facilitate interdisciplinary discussions centered on several major thematic R&D areas for CEA/VF/GH, each of which will interface with the others to identify cross-disciplinary areas of synergy, opportunity and need. Thematic areas include:
Economics: focus questions and discussions will include: what are good metrics of success in these systems from both industry and community perspectives? Can we develop a pipeline to quantify environmental and social benefits of these systems in a Benefit-Cost Analysis framework? How scalable are these systems? What are environmental impacts, life cycle analyses?
Engineering: focus questions and discussions will include: how to increase lighting efficacy, light use efficiency, and reduce cost? How to control and modulate CO2? How to design and enhance air circulation and to optimize HVAC? How to minimize labor input and integrate innovative automation and robotic systems? How to improve water use efficiency and cycling?
Production Systems: focus questions and discussions will include: how to manage crops to integrate with improve environmental controls, nutrient delivery and automation. How to improve plant architecture to enhance crop productivity and reduce waste? How to improve logistics and enhance labor efficiency?
Plant Breeding: focus questions and discussions will include: what makes a crop a good candidate for indoor farming/what are priority candidate crops for these systems beyond what is currently grown? What traits should be privileged in breeding programs for indoor farming? How can gene editing and genomic techniques be leveraged to integrate novel financial opportunities into these growing systems, such as increased nutritional content, enhanced water, nutrients and light use efficiencies, or pharmaceutical production? How CEA production systems can alter the structure of microbial communities associated with plants, growing media, and determine how the alterations affect plant nutrient and water uptake and utilization?
Pest and Disease Management: focus questions and discussions will include: what are the major viral, fungal, and insect pathogens in these systems and how are they best addressed? Integrate Pest Management for reduced chemical control? How to develop and implement a rapid and simple digital imaging system for pest and disease diagnosis? How to improve the efficiency of pest and disease management while not harming beneficial insects and pollinators?
Food Nutrition and Safety: focus questions and discussions will include: how alterations to growing media and environment will impact food quality, flavor, nutrition content and food safety? How do indoor growing conditions alter the microbial communities of plants? How do they impact product quality and shelf life?
Industrial Ecology in Closed Systems: focus questions will include: how can we better design more energy and resource efficient systems? Can we build holistic energy models? Can we create industrial ecosystems where one industry’s effluent is another’s intake? How would we model/quantify the ecosystem services provided by a functioning ‘closed loop industrial ecosystem’?
Conference participants are additionally welcome to join writing teams and collaborate on a proposal for a coordinated agricultural project (CAP) grant on VF that builds off of conference discussions. Writing teams may also choose to develop proposals for relevant funding programs at USDA-NIFA SAS, SCRI, NSF/USDA/DOE INFEWS, and NSF
Deadlines
Pre-registration ends June 30th
invitation to attend conference July 15th
Final registration, room reservations and payment due August 1st;
Conference events begin Monday September 9th
For more information about the conference please read the Project Summary.
For more information about conference activities please read the Conference Program Schedule and Format.
Conference Program Schedule & Format.pdf
For more information about Biosphere 2 please read the following document.
Want to make the most of your time in Tucson? Go to Visit Tucson to discover things to do during your visit!
The Hydroponic Threat To Organic Food
USDA’s organic certification of hydroponically grown produce is an example of conquest and colonization
USDA’s organic certification of hydroponically grown produce is an example of conquest and colonization.
DAVE CHAPMAN
July 5, 2019
In the last seven years there has been a quiet redefinition taking place in the USDA National Organic Program that oversees organic standards. Large scale industrial producers have insinuated themselves into organic certification to transform what the green and white label stands for.
Original organic was based on a simple equation:
Healthy soil = healthy plants = healthy animals = healthy planet.
Hydroponics is a system that relies entirely upon processed inputs to feed the plants. The old organic adage is, “Feed the soil, not the plant.” The guiding principle of conventional agriculture is: “Feed the plant, not the soil.” Obviously, hydroponic production is the most extreme example of this philosophy. Photo by ACME/Flickr
This equation leaves out the discussion of WHY these things are true, but it is a good roadmap for what organic agriculture is all about. The first given is always “healthy soil.” As we look deeper, we cannot study these parts separately, because plants and animals are integral parts of healthy soil system. No plants means no healthy soil. The same is true with animals. Soil and plants coevolved for 350 million years, and neither can be healthy in isolation from the other. The dance between plants, microbial life, and animal life in the soil is necessary for all.
Western soil science got started with the work of German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873). From Liebig’s perspective, soil was a passive storage bin for plant nutrients. However, in Charles Darwin’s 1881 book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, these ideas were challenged by a vision of the soil as a living ecosystem. But Liebig’s viewpoint dominated Western soil science until the 1980’s when the role of organisms in soil formation became better understood. Liebig himself turned away from his “storage bin” paradigm in the later part of his life, but our agricultural sciences continued to follow his earlier writings.
If we take away plants, soil can no longer be living. Plants provide the energy via photosynthesis for all animal and microbial life in the soil. These photosynthates are provided first as root exudates that feed the fungi and bacteria in exchange for which they gain the minerals that in turn feed the plants. The visible life forms are as important as the invisible microbial community. Soil animals go from burrowing woodchucks and gophers to snails, slugs, and elongate animals such as earthworms, flatworms, nematodes, soil mites, springtails, ants, termites, beetles and flies. All of these species together create a community that is often called the soil food web.
Organic farming is based on protecting and enhancing this web of life. By cultivating the diversity of life, we create a stable ecosystem in the soil. Diseases or pestilence are symptoms of a loss of balance. So the organic farmer’s first job is to enhance the diversity of life in the soil community. This is done by providing materials and techniques to help build a soil carbon sponge.
Conventional agriculture is based on a very different strategy of control and simplification. By making systems that are as simple as possible, it becomes easy to control the inputs and outputs. The inputs are processed offsite to provide plant available nutrients. “Soil” becomes a device for holding roots. It is thus easier to make these systems replicable, much like the model of a McDonald's restaurant. McDonald’s simplifies their systems as much as possible to serve the same hamburger to every customer around the world. In such a system the expertise is contained in the corporate staff who design the processes and provides the raw materials. The problem is a loss of nutrition in the final product. McDonald’s serves lots of calories that soothe customers’ cravings, but they fail at providing a healthy diet. The end result is the phenomena of customers who are simultaneously malnourished and obese.
Similarly, in a conventional agriculture system, the yields are high per acre, but, as Vandana Shiva has said, the yield of health per acre is low. As it turns out, we are part of that co-evolution of soil and plants and animals. Human nutritional needs are complex and beyond our full understanding at this point. But organic farmers believe that by embracing those natural systems, we can feed ourselves well, even if we never fully understand why.
As Einstein once said, there is a simplicity that comes before complexity that is worthless, but there is a simplicity beyond complexity that is priceless.
These simplified conventional systems have been promoted by an industry that profits by selling remedies to the unintended consequences of such crude simplicity. Their high yields are unsustainable without the liberal use of poisons. Plants grown in a soil devoid of biological complexity are very vulnerable to disease and insect attack. And of course, the more we use such poisons, the less healthy the soil becomes, so more pesticides are needed, and on and on.
In livestock production, the epitome of conventional agriculture is a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) where animals are isolated from the land. Their food is grown far from where they live, so their manure is lost to the production system. There is no honoring of Albert Howard’s Law Of Return: “what comes from the soil must be returned to the soil.”
In vegetables and berries, the epitome of conventional agriculture is hydroponic production. Hydroponics is a system that relies entirely upon processed inputs to feed the plants. The old organic adage is, “Feed the soil, not the plant.” The guiding principle of conventional agriculture is: “Feed the plant, not the soil.” Obviously, hydroponic production is the most extreme example of this philosophy.
The practices of organic farming are ancient, but not all traditional farming systems could be called organic by the definition of such pioneers as Albert Howard. Some traditional agriculture was not sustainable and ultimately led to the downfall of civilizations. But organic principles have been practiced in the intensive farming of southeast Asia for over 4000 years. They were learned by Howard in India and subsequently taught in the West. Since then, soil science has confirmed Howard’s ideas to an astonishing degree. Every day we learn more and more about how soil communities function and about why such a system need not depend on pesticides to thrive. Every day we learn more about the connections between the soil microbiome and our own microbiome.
From this logic we derive a conclusion that is important to remember: that the absence of pesticides in a successful organic system is the result of how we farm, not the definition of it.
The organic movement has long believed that food grown in a healthy soil is the foundation of human health. In recent years it has become clear that agriculture is also deeply involved in the climate crisis, both as the problem and as the solution. Conventional agriculture contributes directly to the destruction of the living soil, leading to the spread of deserts and the warming of the planet. We have the skills and understanding to farm without chemicals in a way that will build a soil carbon sponge that can cool our warming planet. Our impediment to achieving this is social and political, not technical.
The inclusion of hydroponics in organic certification is thus not an example of innovation and improvement. It is an example of conquest and colonization. It is simply a hostile takeover of organic by economic forces. It has been widely resisted by the organic community, but the USDA continues to embrace hydroponics as organic just as they embrace CAFOs as organic. Their redefinition of organic is in opposition to the law and to international norms. The US once again becomes the rogue nation throwing away our mutual future so somebody can make a buck.
At this time, huge quantities of hydroponic berries, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and greens are being marketed as “Certified Organic” in partnership with the USDA. And there is no way of identifying what is hydroponic in the organic label.
The Real Organic Project was created to challenge this process. Our efforts include the creation of an add-on label so that real organic farmers and eaters might be able to find one another in a deceptive marketplace. To learn more, please visit us at realorganicproject.org.
Dave Chapman
Dave Chapman runs Long Wind Farm in Vermont and is the Executive Director of the Real Organic Project. He is a founding member of the Vermont Organic Farmers. He has been active in the movement to Keep The Soil In Organic. He is proud to be a current member of the Policy Committee of the Organic Farmers Association. He served on the USDA Hydroponic Task Force.
Secretary Perdue Praises Farming Innovations at Forbes AgTech Summit
At the fifth-annual Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue noted his admiration for the level of innovation that continues to be developed in the agricultural sector
JULY 2, 2019 AGRI-BUSINESS, USDA-NRCS
At the fifth-annual Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue noted his admiration for the level of innovation that continues to be developed in the agricultural sector. During his discussion with Forbes CEO Mike Federle, the Secretary described the agtech environment as being “on the cusp” of making revolutionary improvements to the field of agriculture and noted that USDA wants to help facilitate those advancements.
“We want to help form a regulatory framework that works with our innovators, and creators, and entrepreneurs rather than against them,” said Secretary Perdue. “We have the ability here at USDA, through our land grant universities and our extension service, to get that to the ground floor of producers, to understand the new technology here.”
Many of the technologies being developed for agricultural application are going to rely on consistent internet access. The issue of broadband internet, which the Secretary described as having a “transformational capacity,” will need to be addressed with improvements to infrastructure. “As we move as a society to the internet of things, agriculture is going to be one of the beneficiaries, but it’s going to rely on connectivity,” Secretary Perdue noted. “We’ve got some gee-whiz kind of productivity increases out there in precision agriculture that could be utilized today but they’re dependent upon connectivity.”
Along with agricultural innovations, the Secretary also addressed trade concerns as they relate to China. While the troubling trade market is not likely to remain the status quo, Secretary Perdue noted that it is because of American farmers success that they carry much of the burden when trade tensions run high. “We’re blessed to be in a nation where we can produce more than we can consume domestically,” said Secretary Perdue. “Farmers, because of the trade surplus that they enjoy in agriculture, they’re the tip of the spear. When people are going to retaliate then that’s where they go.”
The Forbes AgTech Summit was one of several stops the Secretary made on his most recent trip to California. Secretary Perdue visited the indoor vertical farming company Plenty to review the techniques being used to grow food in an urban environment. The Secretary also toured Driscoll’s Berries, as well as the C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant, a key component of the Central Valley Project. During his California visit, Secretary Perdue also met with local politicians and community members at several town hall events that took place in Clarksburg, Watsonville, Los Banos, and Yolo County.
Listen to Secretary Perdue’s discussion at the Forbes AgTech Summit below.
USDA National Organic Program Holds Firm Against Efforts to Impose Special Restrictions Against Growers Using Container and Hydroponic Methods
Groups opposed to certification of production systems incorporating containers and hydroponics failed in their most recent attempts in the last few weeks to convince the USDA and the National Organic Standards Board to initiate the process for new standards for those production systems.
Several groups including the Real Organic Project, the Organic Farmers Association, the National Organic Coalition and others presented testimony at the recent National Organic Standards Board meeting in Seattle and in recent press campaigns to call for a moratorium on certifications for organic production systems using containers and hydroponics. The moratorium would be followed by the revocation of certification for existing operations. However, if the USDA does not agree to those terms, the groups insist that new more restrictive regulations must be drafted, implemented and then applied to container and hydroponic organic production systems.
Those groups have begun the tactic of inventing hypothetical scenarios about production practices, and they then ask for clarification from USDA regarding the legality of such an approach. USDA indicated that they would not likely give opinions regarding hypothetical situations, but USDA will look at specific cases and instances of operations performing actual activities to review for compliance. The CSO expects that opponents of certifications for containers will refer operations for review, and USDA will respond regarding those practices.
However, this activity will not be unofficial rule making or regulations that are created without any opportunity for public input. USDA does not have the authority to implement standards through the guidance process that would create special restrictions for container operations. Any new restrictions would have to go through the formal rule making process.
Organic producers must follow all applicable USDA standards for organic production systems. Specifically, growers need to show that their production system is managed to respond to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.
Here are the requirements copied from 7 CFR 205.201 that lay out the elements required to be included in the organic production and handling systems plan.
§205.201 Organic production and handling system plan.
(a) The producer or handler of a production or handling operation, except as exempt or excluded under §205.101, intending to sell, label, or represent agricultural products as “100 percent organic,” “organic,” or “made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s))” must develop an organic production or handling system plan that is agreed to by the producer or handler and an accredited certifying agent. An organic system plan must meet the requirements set forth in this section for organic production or handling. An organic production or handling system plan must include:
(1) A description of practices and procedures to be performed and maintained, including the frequency with which they will be performed;
(2) A list of each substance to be used as a production or handling input, indicating its composition, source, location(s) where it will be used, and documentation of commercial availability, as applicable;
(3) A description of the monitoring practices and procedures to be performed and maintained, including the frequency with which they will be performed, to verify that the plan is effectively implemented;
(4) A description of the recordkeeping system implemented to comply with the requirements established in §205.103;
(5) A description of the management practices and physical barriers established to prevent commingling of organic and non organic products on a split operation and to prevent contact of organic production and handling operations and products with prohibited substances; and
(6) Additional information deemed necessary by the certifying agent to evaluate compliance with the regulations.
(b) A producer may substitute a plan prepared to meet the requirements of another Federal, State, or local government regulatory program for the organic system plan: Provided, That, the submitted plan meets all the requirements of this subpart.
Your Membership and Activity Still Needed
The efforts of growers and other members of the organic community like yourself helped to create more regulatory certainty and to safeguard your rights to select the most appropriate growing methods in your organic operations continues.
Join the CSO if you have not done so already. Our sustained efforts on behalf of the hydroponic, aquaponics and container industry around the country and in Washington, DC rely on dues from farming operations like yours.
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative - Sustainable Agricultural Systems
Program:
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) | AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems
Applications to the FY 2019 Agriculture and Food Research Initiative - Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS) Request for Applications (RFA) must focus on approaches that promote transformational changes in the U.S. food and agriculture system within the next 25 years.
NIFA seeks creative and visionary applications that take a systems approach, and that will significantly improve the supply of abundant, affordable, safe, nutritious, and accessible food, while providing sustainable opportunities for expansion of the bioeconomy through novel animal, crop, and forest products and supporting technologies.
These approaches must demonstrate current and future social, behavioral, economic, health, and environmental impacts.
Additionally, the outcomes of the work being proposed must result in societal benefits, including promotion of rural prosperity and enhancement of quality of life for those involved in food and agricultural value chains from production to utilization and consumption. See AFRI SAS RFA for details.
APPLY FOR GRANT(LINK IS EXTERNAL)VIEW RFA
ELIGIBILITY DETAILS
Who Is Eligible to Apply:
1862 Land-Grant Institutions, 1890 Land-Grant Institutions, 1994 Land-Grant Institutions, Other or Additional Information (See below), Private Institutions of Higher Ed, State Controlled Institutions of Higher Ed
More on Eligibility:
Note: This RFA invites only integrated project (must include research, education, and extension) applications. Please see Part III, A. of the this AFRI SAS RFA for more specific eligibility requirements for integrated projects. Applications from ineligible institutions will not be reviewed.
IMPORTANT DATES
Posted Date:
Friday, March 29, 2019
Closing Date:
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Other Due Date:
Letter of Intent Due:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For More Information Contact:
AFRI Sustainable Agricultural Systems Team
Contact for Electronic Access Problems:
electronic@nifa.usda.gov(link sends e-mail)
Funding Opportunity Number:
USDA-NIFA-AFRI-006739
CFDA number:
10.310
Previous fiscal year(s) RFA:
FY 2018 AFRI SAS FINAL RFA (431.48 KB)
Estimated Total Program Funding:
$90,000,000
Percent of Applications Funded:
10%
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement:
See RFA
Range of Awards:
$5,000,000 - $10,000,000
Cornucopia Institute Takes Aim Against Certification Companies Over Organic Production Systems Incorporating Containers
The Cornucopia Institute released late last week a Guide to Organic Certifiers. The apparent point of the document is to encourage growers opposed to certification of organic production systems that include containers to switch their certification companies
The Cornucopia Institute released late last week a Guide to Organic Certifiers. The apparent point of the document is to encourage growers opposed to certification of organic production systems that include containers to switch their certification companies.
As efforts supported by Cornucopia to pass a National Organic Standards Board recommendation to modify USDA Organic Regulations in order to prohibit hydroponic systems failed, a new avenue to achieve their goals is to economically damage USDA approved and regulated certification companies to the point where those certifiers would drop growers that produce some portion of their crops in containerized production systems.
The Washington Post did publish a story on Friday on the subject (a repost of the story can be found here). The article states that the purpose of the certifier scorecard "is mostly a mechanism for shaming certifiers and the organic businesses that employ them."
CCOF Chief Executive Kelly Damewood responded in the article by saying "We are a federally accredited certifier and cannot deny certification based on philosophy or values alone. The scorecard is showing that they have an issue with the National Organic Programs allowance of hydroponics, not with CCOF."
Your Membership and Activity Still Needed
The efforts of growers and other members of the organic community like yourself helped to create more regulatory certainty and to safeguard your rights to select the most appropriate growing methods in your organic operations continues.
Join the CSO if you have not done so already. Our sustained efforts on behalf of the hydroponic, aquaponics and container industry around the country and in Washington, DC rely on dues from farming operations like yours.
USDA Vertical Ag Workshop Report
On June 27 and 28, 2018 the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy co-hosted a workshop in Washington, D.C.
By urbanagnews
March 1, 2019
On June 27 and 28, 2018 the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy co-hosted a workshop in Washington, D.C. The workshop engaged stakeholders, experts, and researchers from across the United States in interdisciplinary discussions on the potential for indoor agriculture (IA), in the context of sustainable urban ecosystems, to address global environmental challenges. Participants collaborated to identify Research and Development (R&D) challenges, opportunities, and needs relating to six major areas:
Community Services
Economics 5.
Ecosystem Services
Plant Breeding
Pest Management
Systems Engineering
Discussions relating to each of these six major themes are summarized in the body of this report.
USDA Vertical Ag workshop report Download
Anti-GMO Groups Petition USDA To Exclude Hydroponic Farming From Organic Certification
Cathy Siegner | Food Dive | February 13, 2019
Organic movement schism? Fight over hydroponics puts $50 billion industry in limbo
The Center for Food Safety filed a petition with the Department of Agriculture Jan. 16 urging the agency to exclude hydroponically grown produce from eligibility for the USDA Organic label. The group wants the USDA to make sure “ecologically integrated organic production practices” are required for organic certification and revoke existing organic certifications previously issued to hydroponic operations.
The petition, endorsed by 13 consumer groups, organic growers and an organic retailer, stated growing food without soil doesn’t meet federal organic standards and violates federal law requiring soil improvement and biodiversity conservation….
[T]he National Organic Standards Board recommended in 2010 that hydroponic not be considered a certified organic growing method….However, board members narrowly voted in November 2017 not to exclude hydroponic crops from organic certification.
Hydroponic growers see themselves as responding to the demand for local organic food. Plenty, a San Francisco-based vertical farming company that grows leafy greens and herbs indoors without soil, wrote to the [USDA’s] NOSB [National Organic Standards Board] in 2017 saying all available innovative solutions must be explored, particularly those that can save resources.
“For example, Plenty’s organic growing system yields up to 350 times that of traditional systems and can be located close to consumers, regardless of climate, geography or economic status….” the company’s testimony said.
Read full, original article: Petition asks USDA to exclude hydroponics from organic certification
Organic Industry Is Not Giving Hydroponic, Aquaponic Growers A Warm Embrace
The litigious Center for Food Safety two weeks ago filed a rule-making petition with U.S. Department of Agriculture, demanding new regulations prohibiting organic certification of hydroponic agriculture production
By Dan Flynn on February 8, 2019
Some fresh produce from hydroponic growers has been approved for and is being sold under USDA’s organic seal, but farmers who grow their organic crops in the soil don’t like the competition.
The litigious Center for Food Safety two weeks ago filed a rule-making petition with U.S. Department of Agriculture, demanding new regulations prohibiting organic certification of hydroponic agriculture production. The 22-page petition also asks USDA to revoke any existing organic certification previously issued to hydroponic operations.
Food safety comes into play in the petition in only one way. Hydroponics doesn’t have soil, so they come up a little short because they do not provide soil samples as a measure of testing compliance. The CFS points out that regulations implementing the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 “consistently suggest soil samples as a measure for testing compliance.”
Agents who review operations as part of the USDA’s organic certification process “must conduct periodic residue testing of agricultural products,” with soil samples suggested as a method for testing, CFS’s petition says. “Many hydroponic systems would not contain soil for sampling, as suggested in the OFPA regulations.”
Hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic growers currently can earn organic certification. It is allowed by USDA so long as the certifier can show there is compliance with the organic standard. One industry supplier says hydroponics, by definition, is a method of growing plants in a water-based nutrient-rich solution that does not use soil. Instead of plants root in a nutrient solution with access to oxygen.
A year ago, USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS) tried to settle some issues concerning organic certification of hydroponic and aeroponic growing operations. The AMS action came after USDA’s advisory National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) recommended banning the non-soil systems from being called organic production. USDA only briefly pondered that one before saying “thanks, but no thanks” to NOSB for the recommendation.
Aquaponics refers to growing crops in a system with farmed fish that supply nutrients for plants. Greenhouse growers and urban farmers using vertical growing systems use hydroponic and aeroponic methods — all without soil. The organic industry has been rocked with debate about these hydroponic methods for nearly a decade.
CFS wants a flat prohibition on hydroponic operations ever being allowed to use the USDA organic label. It claims hydroponic production systems that do not use soil do not meet federal organic standards and violate organic practices, which require that organic farming include soil improvement and biodiversity conservation.
Joining the CFS petition are more than a dozen other organic farmers, consumer, retailer, and certifying organizations, including the Organic Farmers Association, Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA), PCC Community Markets, and the Cornucopia Institute.
“Mislabeling mega-hydroponic operations as ‘organic’ is contrary to the text and basic principles of the organic standard. Right now there is a pitched battle for the future of organic, and we stand with organic farmers and consumers who believe the label must retain its integrity,” said George Kimbrell, CFS legal director.
The petitioners say consumers trust the organic label and pay extra for the assurance that it indicates a more healthful and environmentally-friendly way of producing the food they buy.
Since the federal Certified Organic label was introduced more than 20 years ago, CFS says the organic food market has grown exponentially and is now a $60 billion industry in which multinational corporations have bought organic brands and compete with small food producers who use environmentally-friendly methods.
“Allowing hydroponic systems to be certified as organic undercuts the livelihood of organic farmers that take great lengths to support healthy soil as the bedrock of their farms,” stated Kate Mendenhall of the Organic Farmers Association. “Hydroponic producers getting the benefit of the organic label without actually doing anything to benefit the soil undermines the standard and puts all soil-based organic farmers at an untenable economic disadvantage.”
The petition argues that organic agriculture has traditionally been defined as using soil requirements such as fostering soil fertility, improving soil quality, and using environmentally beneficial farming methods such as proper tillage and crop rotation.
USDA continues to allow hydroponics, which goes against the advisory NOSB’s recommendation that organic certification not be extended to the non-soil growing methods.
Canada and Mexico prohibit hydroponics for organics, and the European Parliament voted to end the organic certification of hydroponic products in April 2018.
“Corporate agribusiness lobbyists have been working to water down the organic standards for decades,” said Mark Kastel, executive director for the Cornucopia Institute. “In this case, the careful stewardship of soil fertility is not only a philosophical precept, but it’s also codified in federal law.”
And while CFS is often successful with its legal strategies, the current petition to USDA may not get too far. Jennifer Tucker, the deputy administrator of USDA’s National Organic Program, recently said organic certification of hydroponic operations is “a settled issue.”
“Last year we issued an Organic Insider (e-mail newsletter) that indicated that hydroponics had been allowed since the beginning of the program and that (they) are still allowed,” Tucker said. “We consider that a settled issue.”
The Packer, the produce industry publication, reported Tucker’s comments to the 2019 Global Organic Produce Expo.
“There are some certifiers that certify hydroponics, and there are some that do not; they are all bound by a common set of regulations,” Tucker added.
Tags: Center for Food Safety, hydroponic, Jennifer Tucker, NOP, NOSB, organic certification, organics, USDA Organic
Groups Take Legal Action To Prohibit Organic Hydroponics
Cornucopia Institute
Consumers And Organic Groups Say Hydroponic Systems Cannot Comply With USDA’s Organic Standards.
January 17, 2019
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a new legal action demanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibit hydroponic operations from using the organic label.
CFS said hydroponic production systems — a catch-all term that applies to food production methods that do not use soil — do not meet federal organic standards and violate organic law, which requires that organic farming include soil improvement and biodiversity conservation; hydroponic systems cannot comply with the organic standard's vital soil standards because hydroponic crops do not use soil at all.
The CFS filing was endorsed by more than a dozen other organic farmer, consumer, retailer and certifying organizations, including the Organic Farmers Assn., Northwest Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, PCC Community Markets and The Cornucopia Institute.
"Mislabeling mega-hydroponic operations as 'organic' is contrary to the text and basic principles of the organic standard. Right now, there is a pitched battle for the future of organic, and we stand with organic farmers and consumers who believe the label must retain its integrity," CFS legal director George Kimbrell said.
The groups said consumers trust the organic label and pay extra for the assurance that it indicates a more healthful and environmentally friendly way of producing the food they buy. Since the federal Certified Organic label was introduced more than 20 years ago, the organic food market has grown exponentially and is now a $60 billion industry in which multinational corporations have bought organic brands and, thus, compete with small food producers growing food using environmentally friendly methods.
"Allowing hydroponic systems to be certified as organic undercuts the livelihood of organic farmers that take great lengths to support healthy soil as the bedrock of their farms," Kate Mendenhall, director of the Organic Farmers Assn., stated. "Hydroponic producers getting the benefit of the organic label without actually doing anything to benefit the soil undermines the standard and put all soil-based organic farmers at an untenable economic disadvantage."
Organic agriculture certification has always included soil requirements such as fostering soil fertility, improving soil quality and using environmentally beneficial farming methods like proper tillage and crop rotation. “The National Organic Standards Board, the expert body assigned by Congress to advise USDA on organic matters, recommended that the agency prohibit certification of hydroponic systems, but USDA instead continues to allow hydroponics. Canada and Mexico also prohibit hydroponics from organic, and the European Parliament voted to end the organic certification of hydroponic products in April 2018,” CFS said in a statement.
TAGS: POLICY
California Farm Linked To Romaine Lettuce E.coli Outbreak Recalls Additional Produce
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FDA believes market has been purged of contaminated romaine
A California farm that federal health officials traced to the recent E.coli outbreak from romaine lettuce has recalled additional produce “out of an abundance of caution,” the facility announced Thursday.
Adam Bros. Farming Inc. in Santa Maria has recalled red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, and cauliflower that was harvest from Nov. 27 to Nov. 30.
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SOME ROMAINE LETTUCE SAFE TO EAT AGAIN, FDA SAYS
While none of the recalled products have tested positive for E. coli, and no illnesses associated with these produce items have been reported, the farm said: “Out of an abundance of caution, Adam Bros. Farming, Inc. is initiating this voluntary recall in cooperation with the FDA.”
“The recall was initiated after it was discovered that sediment from a reservoir near where the produce was grown tested positive for E. coli,” the farm explained.
Adam Bros. Farming Inc. added the recalled produce was “grown in particular fields” and does not involve all of its products.
“None of the filtered, treated water has tested positive for E. coli, all E. coli tests returning negative,” Adam Bros. Farming Inc. said, adding the bacteria “may cause a diarrheal illness from which most healthy adults can recover completely within a week. Some people can develop a form of kidney failure called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS). HUS is most likely to occur in young children and the elderly. The condition can lead to serious kidney damage and even death.”
While Adam Bros. Farming Inc. has been linked to the food poisoning outbreak from romaine lettuce, federal health officials cautioned that other farms are likely involved in the E. coli outbreak and consumers should continue checking the label before purchasing romaine lettuce.
At least 59 people in 15 states have now been sickened by the tainted lettuce, the FDA said.
That said, regulators said they are fairly confident that the lettuce which first triggered the outbreak has been removed from the market. The FDA told consumers to avoid romaine lettuce just before Thanksgiving.
To learn more about the recent red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce and cauliflower recall -- like where these produce items were distributed -- click here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Madeline Farber is a Reporter for Fox News. You can follow her on Twitter @MaddieFarberUDK.
Hydroponic Organic Produce: Year One
By Lee Allen| October 10, 2018
The final ruling to confirm hydroponic produce is eligibile to apply for organic certification took nearly 15 years.
We’re approaching the first anniversary of last year’s National Organics Standard Board (NOSB)/USDA clarification that cleared up any confusion about whether hydroponically grown produce is eligible for organic certification. It is.
The decision was not made lightly, nor in haste. The final ruling took nearly 15 years and, like the ongoing Hatfield and McCoy feud, verbal shots are still firing from both sides.
Technically, certifying hydroponic production has been allowed since 2002.
“At the Fall 2017 meeting, the NOSB reaffirmed certification for that system,” says a USDA spokesperson.
Actually, in 2010, NOSB recommended against allowing organic certification, writing, “Growing media shall contain sufficient organic matter capable of supporting natural and diverse soil ecology. For this reason, hydroponic and aeroponic systems are prohibited.”
The National Organic Program (NOP), however, determines what is allowed and what is not allowed. It ruled against NOSB’s recommendation.
With the 2017 decision, both bodies are finally in alignment.
Shortly after the decision, protests popped up around the country. The counterview was captured in a National Public Radio report.
“When the founding principles of organic go to soil health and regeneration rather than simply feeding plants nutrients, it goes to the foundation of what organic farming means.”
The Massachusetts chapter of Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) and the National Organic Coalition are advocating for the NOP to halt certifying hydroponic producers until what the groups term, “more clear guidelines for what constitutes organic hydroponics are issued.”
So while the decision is made, some are hoping an appeal will overturn it.
Future Sales Likely to Attract More Organic Growers
We can complain till the cows come home. Now the central question is: Will the ruling have a transformative impact on the organic vegetable industry? Or will it ultimately be labeled as ‘no big deal’?
The number of certified organic hydroponic operations is still limited. Exact numbers are difficult to come by at this point, but the number is likely in the low two digits. Certification takes time and is infamous for its reams of paperwork. Numbers are likely to increase sharply over the next two to three years.
Organic food sales in the U.S. already post ongoing and off-the-chart revenue increases — from about $3 billion in 1997 to nearing the $50 billion mark in 2017. It’s a four-decade jump that represents a bit over 5% of total food sales in America.
“Consumers love organic. And while the market will see a steadier growth pace as it matures, it will continue to surpass the growth rate of the broader food market,” writes Laura Batcha, Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association, in her assessment of Nutrition Business Journal’s 2018 Organic Industry Survey.
That January 2018 Organic Industry Survey showed produce (with fresh produce accounting for 90% of the demonstrated rise) topping the 2017 category at $16.5 billion in sales, a 5.3% growth.
Global Players Will Play Major Role
The U.S. is late in joining the hydroponic and aquaponic game. Greenhouse vegetables are much more common in some countries, including Europe, Canada, and Mexico.
The global hydroponic vegetable market will likely double by 2025, a study by Transparency Market Research shows. It predicts lettuce will be the biggest winner, with a 33% share of the hydroponics market.
The 2017 International Trade Statistics Map (ITSM) shows the value of vegetables imported into the U.S. that year was $73.9 million, with the preponderance coming from North American Free Trade Association partners Mexico ($10 million) and Canada ($6 million).
“Europe is anticipated to dominate the global hydroponic vegetables market with a 41% share overall by the end of 2025,” ITSM writes.
Interestingly enough, two dozen European countries, as well as Mexico, Canada, and Japan, prohibit the selling of hydroponic vegetables as ‘organic,’ meaning that producers there frequently grow for an American market.
A European Parliament-approved resolution will prohibit importing hydroponically produced organic food from non-EU (European Union) nations beginning
January 2021. In essence, U.S. growers will no longer be able to ship hydroponically grown and organically certified food to the EU for sale as organic.
Industry Reactions
When you talk with growers and others invested in the hydroponics ruling, opinions vary on how important the ruling will ultimately be.
Arizona organic growers Wholesum Harvest and California’s Driscoll berries are the two big domestic names in the industry, and both say they are already delivering what consumers expect in an organic label — produce raised affordably, year-round, and without synthetic pesticides.
Theo Crisantes, Chief Operations Officer of Wholesum Harvest, USDA organically certified for the last 30 years, says he hasn’t seen any major shift in the organic vegetable industry as a result of the ruling.
“The status quo was maintained,” he says, “although it did spark some interest from different growers beyond the vegetable industry into a broader spectrum, like the berry industry. But we haven’t seen a real rush from other growers to join the industry because it takes both knowledge about how to grow as well as requiring a heavy capital investment.”
Because of the peak growing season at press time, Driscoll’s, an organic berry grower in 21 countries and a fourth-generation family business that controls roughly a third of the $6 billion U.S. berry market, wasn’t available for comment.
Agricultural/Biosystems Engineer Dr. Stacy Tollefson, University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, was part of the NOSB taskforce that made the recommendation to reclassify.
“I haven’t seen any real impact on the organic hydroponic industry since the certification confirmation decision was made,” she says. “It’s basically been business as usual, but with the knowledge that the threat no longer exists of losing that certification.
“I do think a lot of hydro growers who were starting to grow for the organic market slowed down production or put research and expansion on hold, and some new growers thinking of going that route might have held back because they didn’t know how the decision would go. But now they can call their product ‘organic.’ I think this will solidify their expansion plans.”
Francis Thicke, another NOSB member, farms in Iowa and has a different take on the matter. He is also a member of the Organic Farmers Association.
“The official allowance of organic certification of hydroponic production is having, and will continue to have, a big effect on organic vegetable production,” Thicke says.
“Although not labeled as hydroponic, some estimates are that about half of the certified organic tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are already hydroponically grown, with many growers wanting to begin or expand organic hydroponic production. With the USDA green light, I expect that soon most of the organic tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers on the grocery store shelf will be hydroponically grown.”
Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be The Culprit In Last Week’s Historic Salmonella Beef Recall
Late last week, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, recalled 6.9 million pounds of ground beef that it said may have been tainted with Salmonella Newport.
Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be The Culprit In Last Week’s Historic Salmonella Beef Recall
Since the mid-1980s, scientists have identified dairy cows as the primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport. A closer look at established facts points to an ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.
October 9, 2018
by Joe Fassler
Late last week, JBS, the world’s largest meat packer, recalled 6.9 million pounds of ground beef that it said may have been tainted with Salmonella Newport. Here’s what we know four days into the recall: the strain is responsible for sickening 57 people in 16 states. All of the meat came from the same JBS plant in Tolleson, Arizona. And in less than a week, the incident has already reached historic proportions. It’s the largest recall of beef since the notorious Rancho Feeding Inc. recall of 2014. Former USDA food safety specialist Carl Custer has said it’s largest-ever recall of ground beef related to Salmonella.
Still, major questions remain. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) may again broaden the scope of the recall, as it already did on Thursday. More stores may be added to the list of affected retailers published over the weekend. And, of course, more Americans may continue to fall ill. But while basic facts—how much meat, from which stores, causing how many illnesses—remain unclear, a larger uncertainty looms. Namely: How does nearly 7 million pounds of beef get exposed to Salmonella in the first place, then get shipped out to the public? What, exactly, went wrong at Tolleson?
Facts point to a massive, ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.
When I asked FSIS for additional insight, I was told I’d have to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to learn more. JBS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. So far as the official channels are concerned, we’re still largely in the dark.
And yet, the few details voluntarily released are very revealing if you read between the lines, helping to explain why the meat of an estimated 13,000 animals, a small city of cattle, is now headed for the landfill.
The people I spoke to for this story suggest this outbreak had a clear origin point: a dairy farm in the Southwest. That’s important, because dairy cows processed for meat turn out to be a kind of food safety blind spot. For reasons I’ll explain, dairy cows sickened by Salmonella are more likely than healthy ones to be sent to meat plants for slaughter. Once there, they’re likely to be ground up and used as filler in thousands of pounds of beef, dramatically increasing their risk potential. Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s no system in place to track or disarm this risk. In fact, thanks to a quirk in food safety law, meatpackers aren’t required to test for Salmonella. And even when it is present, the government can’t really do anything about it—not even if millions of pounds of tainted product are at stake.
While we may never know the exact details of this outbreak, we can look to previous recalls for clues—and established facts point to a massive, ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.
Tolleson, Arizona, situated just west of the Phoenix metropolitan area, is surrounded by cows.
Arizona is the 13th highest milk-producing state by volume. Neighboring New Mexico, with 323,000 cows producing more than 8 billion pounds of milk in 2017, ranks in the top ten. But in the realm of livestock transport, where farmers routinely have to drive their animals hundreds of miles to be slaughtered, Tolleson is less than a day’s drive from the country’s most productive dairy region: central and Southern California.
Dairy cows on a farm in California, the country’s most productive dairy state
California is by far the largest milk-producing state in the nation. In San Bernardino County alone, 40,000 dairy cows produced almost a billion pounds of milk in 2017. Heading north from there into lusher, more temperate central California, production only increases. The state’s top five milk-producing counties—Tulare, Merced, Kings, Stanislaus, and Kern—are home to well over a million dairy cows, who churned out about 27 billion pounds of milk in 2017.
The dairy industry’s proximity is a corroborating detail in last week’s recall. But location isn’t the only factor that makes dairy cows the likely culprit. The smoking gun here is epidemiological: Salmonella entericaserotype Newport, the unusual strain of Salmonella implicated in this recall, has been highly linked to dairy cows in the past. In fact, since the mid-1980s, scientists have identified dairy cows as the primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport.
In 1985, Californians in Los Angeles County started getting sick. Further research found that Salmonella Newport was to blame—a specific, multi-drug-resistant strain that came from California dairy farms. Scientists found that same unique strain in ground beef products on the shelf, at the slaughterhouse where those products were processed, at the dairies who’d sent cows for slaughter on the days tainted product was pushed through, and in the bodies of sick cows at those dairies. In the years that followed, the research community began to take note.
Dairy cow meat makes up 20 percent of the U.S. ground beef market.
“Dairy cows have been incriminated as the source of Salmonella Newport-contaminated hamburgers causing foodborne illness,” wrote the authors of a 1997 paper published by the World Organization for Animal Health, an intergovernmental organization that works to control animal disease worldwide. By 2002, after several smaller outbreaks, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledged that “strains of Salmonella enterica serotype Newport are becoming increasingly common in dairy cattle and are causing a growing share of infections in humans.”
Last year, Megin Nichols, a CDC veterinarian, was part of a team of scientists tasked with investigating a recall that had close similarities to JBS’s: Between October 2016 and July 2017, 106 people across 21 states were sickened by Salmonella Newport after eating ground beef. Nichols’s team traced this lesser-known strain of salmonella back to a herd of New Mexico dairy cows.
Based on the strain detected, dairy cows are the likely source of this year’s outbreak, too, she says.
In other words, experts seem to agree that whenever Salmonella Newport turns up in ground beef—the exact scenario that lead to last week’s recall—dairy cows tend to be the culprit. I was not able to find reference to a Salmonella Newport outbreak linked to ground beef that didn’t originate with dairy cows. And so it seems reasonable to conclude, even though JBS and FSIS have not offered more official information, that this outbreak is no different, especially given the plant’s proximity to dairy country.
iStock / AHPhotoswpg
Between October 2016 and July 2017, 106 people were sickened by Salmonella Newport after eating ground beef linked to dairy cows
But how does Salmonella Newport get into dairy cows in the first place, and why is that strain so likely to end up in our hamburgers? This part of the story that has to do with biology, economics, and regulation—and it’s where things start to get very interesting.
At large-scale, intensive dairies like the ones that proliferate in California, productivity is all-important. Cows are hooked up by their udders to pneumatic sucking devices and placed on “rotary milking parlours,” originally called Rotolactors—a slowly turning wheel of automated milking stalls, kind of like a cow Gravitron. To best earn a living, dairy farmers need to make sure every cow on that wheel is as productive as physically possible. So when a cow’s output significantly drops for any reason, the farmer must make the difficult decision about whether or not to “cull” the cow: to sell it for meat, and find a better-producing replacement to take its place.
Culling is an unfortunate reality of dairy production. Virtually all dairy cows are sold for meat at some point, but farmers never want to sell a cow they’ve invested time, money, and effort in until they really have to. The difficult question farmers continually face is whether it would be cheaper and more efficient to treat a cow’s ailment, losing productivity all the while, or just sell it for meat and replace it.
A sick dairy cow is more likely than a healthy one to make its way into our food.
Routinely, culling makes the most sense. A 2007 USDA report found that roughly a quarter of cows are removed from dairies each year for one reason or another, and that the vast majority of culled cows are sold for meat. That makes for a lot of burgers. Since dairy cows are bred for milking, not for well-marbled steaks, they’re typically ground, not processed into primal cuts. All that dairy cow meat makes up a significant proportion of the U.S. ground beef market—about 20 percent, according to the Cattlemen’s Beef Board.
That’s where Salmonella comes in. Because when cows get Salmonella—and Salmonella Newport in particular—their milk output starts to drop. This helps explains a contorted fact that’s hard to believe: A sick dairy cow is more likely than a healthy one to make its way into our food.
Salmonella bacteria can get into a dairy herd in a variety of ways. It can be introduced by new replacement cattle carrying it, or brought in by the rodents or wild birds attracted to grain-heavy dairy cow feed. Because of the stress of modern dairies, cows tend to be quite susceptible to these germs, especially as they age.
“If you can imagine dairy cow environments, there’s a lot of cows, often moving around in a contained space,” says CDC’s Megan Nichols. “One of the things that might really predispose [dairy cows] to infections are some of the environmental factors and just being mixed with hundreds of other cows. I think anytime you bring a large group together, whether it’s a group of people or a herd of cattle, you’re potentially introducing new diseases.”
Dairy farmers care a lot about Salmonella, in part because it’s a productivity issue that affects their bottom line.
As a result, dairy cattle do frequently harbor Salmonella—though estimates vary widely on how often. A 1994 survey in Washington state found Salmonella in only 4.6 percent of culled dairy cattle. More recently, a 2012 studyof dairies on the Texas High Plains found Salmonella in nearly a third—32.6 percent—of culled dairy cows from nine different operations. Research at dairies in New York state foundthat individual farms ranged dramatically: In some dairy herds, zero percent of cows tested positive for Salmonella, while others tested positive at rates as high as 53 percent. USDA data tell us that over 50 percent of dairies with more than 500 cows are Salmonella-positive, more than half of them clustered in the West and Southwest.
Why isn’t it a bigger deal that Salmonella is so prevalent at large diaries? The dairy industry would argue that Salmonella isn’t really a public health issue, thanks to the miracles of modern milk processing. Since proper pasteurization will kill a range of bacteria including Salmonella, you could argue that it doesn’t really matter if a cow is carrying it or not. Dairy farmers care a lot about Salmonella, but that’s in part because it’s a productivity issue that affects their bottom line.
In fact, dairy farmers may not ever know their cows have Salmonella. Though acute cases can result in a range of noticeable symptoms in cows, including fever, diarrhea, and death, most cases of dairy cow Salmonella are subclinical—they betray no obvious signs. “Subclinical Salmonella may be lurking in your herd, and you’d never know it,” warns a promotional pamphlet published by Zoetis, the world’s largest producer of animal medications. According to Zoetis’s guide, the main thing farmers are likely to notice is a drop in milk production—about 2.5 pounds of milk per infected animal per day, which adds up to more than a ton of milk per week at a heavily infected 500-cow dairy.
Zoetis
A pamphlet by Zoetis, the world’s largest producer of animal medications, warns of the dangers of “hidden” salmonella in a dairy cow herd
Salmonella Newport can also cause what veterinarians call an “abortion storm”—a rash of cows in a herd suffering spontaneous abortion. Cows who suffer an abortion can’t produce milk for the season—enough incentive for farmers, hard-pressed to feed and house and animals that can’t produce, to send them to slaughter. But even cows that see a mild to moderate drop in production are likely to be pulled from the herd. In this way, a strange kind of logic plays out across the industry: The sicker an animal is, the more likely it is to enter the food supply. Because when cows stop producing milk for any reason—whether it’s due to age, stress, or disease—we usually end up eating them.
When infected dairy cows leave the herd, they take their Salmonella with them. Animals processed at the large plants like the one in Tolleson often travel hundreds of miles to get there, a stressful, crowded journey that makes them more likely to both contract and spread illness. Finally, at the slaughterhouse, the Salmonella that isn’t really a health risk on dairy farms suddenly becomes one. Because meat isn’t pasteurized like milk, after all. Plenty of Americans like their burgers medium-rare.
If dairy cows are more likely than beef cattle to harbor Salmonella, the way they’re processed at slaughterhouses makes them even more likely to spread it. While beef cattle are typically processed in “lots”—cattle of specific types, whether conventional, organic, or 100-percent grass fed are kept separate by attribute and price—dairy cows are blended into a wide spectrum of products. You won’t eat a burger that is all dairy cow; those animals aren’t really raised for meat. Culled dairy cows are frequently used as a kind of padding ingredient that’s mixed in with standard beef.
Meat from dairy cows is spread out across a vast number of patties—millions and millions of them.
“Lean beef trimmings from cull cows are often blended with high-fat content beef trimmings harvested from animals finished in feedlots to facilitate a consistent supply of ground beef that meets certain purchase specifications,” according to a 2012 study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. (The study’s lead author is Guy Loneragan, a Texas Tech University food scientist who tells me he also has a paid role on JBS’s Food Safety and Quality Team.) “As a consequence, beef from culled dairy cows may be broadly incorporated into ground beef products across the United States.”
In other words, meat from dairy cows is spread out across a vast number of patties—millions and millions of them. That’s not a bad thing when the meat doesn’t harbor Salmonella. But when it does, the results can be dramatic. The JBS recall ordered by FSIS affected 49 different JBS product lines, from its Cedar River Farms “natural” beef, to its Grass Run Farms line of grass-fed beef, to its conventional beef sold under Walmart’s “Showcase” label. One reason why FSIS recalled so many different products, and so much meat overall, could be that each of these individual offerings was blended with potentially tainted dairy cow meat.
For more conventional offerings, blending with dairy cow trim is standard and would be unsurprising. But in the case of specialty beef marketed with claims like “100 percent grass-fed,” that’s really not supposed to happen. Was that what went on at Tolleson? Hard to say, because there’s another possibility, too: that only some of JBS’s products were blended with the unsafe beef, but pathogens remained inside processing equipment due to a sanitation issue. In other words, dirty equipment may also have contributed to the problem.
“When you have a six-week window where you have many, many different types of products implicated, it appears to be a sanitation issue,” says Angela Anandappa, founding director at the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation, and a research assistant professor with the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She points out a full cleaning must take place every 24 hours for slaughter and ground beef operations. “If equipment wasn’t adequately cleaned, Salmonella could haven taken up residence. That’s very possible here.”
The federal government is effectively powerless to stop companies from sending Salmonella-tainted meat out into the public.
FSIS confirmed to me that “processing equipment must be broken down, cleaned and sanitized in between production days,” according to federal regulations. It’s possible that didn’t happen here. But you’d also think that JBS would be testing constantly for signs of virulent pathogens like Salmonella Newport—and if the company had taken the time to look, they would have been able to stop the outbreak in its tracks. After all, we’re talking about millions of pounds of meat that moved through the plant over the course of six weeks. Who would want to risk a recall on that scale? Isn’t constant, stringent safety testing in place to prevent this very thing from happening?
No, actually—and that’s where things get really hard to stomach. According to USDA rules, Salmonella doesn’t even qualify as an “adulterant” in meat. That means processors aren’t required to test for it. And if it does show up, it doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong—technically or legally.
“Presence of Salmonella in meat products does not render them ‘injurious to health,’ and thus ‘adulterated’ per se within meaning of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), as normal cooking practices destroy Salmonella organism,” writes the legal research firm Westlaw. In practice, that means that the federal government is effectively powerless to stop companies from sending Salmonella-tainted meat out into the public.
Case in point: In 2011, FSIS pulled its inspectors and halted production at Supreme Beef, Inc., a Texas processor who was selling Salmonella-tainted ground beef to the state’s public school system. Supreme sued, arguing that the presence of Salmonella was not cause for the government to intervene. Ultimately, the United States Court of Appeals agreed, writing that “cross-contamination of Salmonella alone cannot form the basis of a determination that a plant’s products are adulterated, because Salmonella itself does not render a product ‘injurious to health.’”
Workers at a Texas slaughterhouse, where FSIS inspectors are on hand to ensure meat meets USDA food safety standards. But FSIS can do little to regulate the presence of Salmonella in meat
The presence of Salmonella in meat, then, poses no public safety hazard—at least by any legal definition. Even if Salmonella-tainted product actually starts making people sick, the government has no legal recourse to force a company to recall it, or to punish a company for distributing it in the first place. JBS’s recall of 7 million pounds of beef was entirely voluntary, after all—issued not because the government forced its hand, but because the company thought it was a good idea.
“Technically, JBS could have said to FSIS, ‘Forget it, I’m not recalling the product,’” says Bill Marler, food safety lawyer and publisher of the website Food Safety News. “Now, that would not have been a smart move on their part because I can still sue them under state law and collect damages. Or if some little kid gets sick or dies, that would not be a good thing from their perspective.” But companies don’t really have to issue meat recalls for Salmonella, —even though they do for E. coli.
According to Marler, E. coli and Salmonella have had radically divergent public health histories. After the 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak that sickened hundreds and killed four (at least three of them children), FSIS moved to make E. Coli an adulterant under FMIA, making it illegal in commerce. As a result, meat processors must test for E. coli, and if it’s found to be present in meat, they can’t sell it. In the wake of that decision, poisonings from E. coli 0157:H7—the most dangerous strain—have fallen by 40 percent since 1994.
When cows stop producing milk for any reason—whether it’s due to age, stress, or disease—we usually end up eating them.
But Salmonella has taken a different path: Its noxious impact has continued unabated. According to CDC, Salmonella is still responsible for 1. 2 million illnesses and 450 deaths every year—and the rate of confirmed cases has held steady.
The government’s lack of regulatory power over Salmonella shrouds the recent JBS recall in secrecy. Because it cannot be said that the company did anything wrong, USDA can’t insist on providing transparency to the public. Legally, JBS is only recalling potentially tainted beef because it wants to. As such, we may never know what really happened.
But that’s why the case I’ve laid out here, though speculative, is important. By reporting on each recall as a one-off, a crisis that’s here one day and gone the next, we fail to connect the larger dots in an increasingly clear picture. There are things we do know, after all. We know that Salmonella Newport has almost always been linked to dairy cows in the past. We know that those sick cows are more likely to be sold to meat plants than their healthy comrades. We know that dairy cow meat is typically treated like filler at the slaughterhouse, processed in a way that dramatically increases its already significant risks. And we know that, if there is a Salmonella-related food safety issue, the government can’t really do anything about it until it is too late.
There’s only one question that remains, really: why, knowing what we know, we don’t do more about it.
Additional reporting contributed by Sam Bloch.
FARM, HEALTH, HOME FEATURE, POLICY, SYSTEMS BEEF FSIS JBS RECALL SALMONELLA USDA
Joe Fassler is The New Food Economy's features editor. His food safety and public health reporting has been a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism. Follow him @joefassler. Reach him by email at: joe.fassler@newfoodeconomy.org
"North American Diets Require More Land Than Available"
The researchers found that global adherence to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines would require one giga-hectare of additional land—roughly the size of Canada
If the global population adopted recommended North American dietary guidelines, there wouldn’t be enough land to provide the food required, according to a new study co-authored by University of Guelph researchers.
hoto by Gary Csoff
The researchers found that global adherence to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines would require one giga-hectare of additional land—roughly the size of Canada—under current farming practice. Their findings were published in PLOS ONE.
“The data shows that we would require more land than what we have if we adopt these guidelines. It is unsustainable,” said Prof. Madhur Anand, director of the Global Ecological Change and Sustainability lab where the study was undertaken.
Prof. Madhur Anand
“This is one of the first papers to look at how the adoption of Western dietary guidelines by the global population would translate into food production, including imports and exports, and specifically how that would dictate land use and the fallouts of that,” she said.
Although the dietary guidelines are viewed as an improvement on the current land-intensive diet of the average American, the researchers say that dietary guidelines should be further developed using not just health but also global land use and equity as criteria.
“We need to look at diet not just as an individual health issue but as an ecosystem health issue,” said Anand, a professor in U of G’s School of Environmental Sciences (SES).
The authors found a strong east-west division worldwide. Most Western Hemisphere countries would use less land by adopting a USDA guideline diet, while most Eastern Hemisphere countries would use more land.
Co-authors of the paper are U of G Prof. Evan Fraser, holder of a Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security; SES graduate student Sarah Rizvi; Chris Pagnutti, an NSERC post-doctoral researcher in SES; and Prof. Chris Bauch, Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo.
“We need to understand human and environmental systems in a coordinated manner, and this is where the interdisciplinary aspect of the work shines. This is also why we worked with an applied mathematician,” said Anand.
The authors call for international coordination of national dietary guidelines because global lands are a limited resource.
Prof. Evan Fraser
“This could be similar, at least in principle, to how greenhouse gas emissions are increasingly being coordinated internationally to address another major global problem: climate change,” Anand said.
Fraser, scientific director of the Food from Thought project and director of the Arrell Food Institute at U of G, added: “One of the 21st century’s great challenges is to develop diets that are both healthy for our bodies and sustainable for the planet.
“Developing the technologies and insights to help industry and consumers is part of what many of us at the University of Guelph are working on through the Food from Thought initiative.”
This research was supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant and is associated with the University of Guelph’s Food from Thought project, supported by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. The project is intended to increase the sustainability and productivity of global food production through leading-edge data science, agri-food research and biodiversity science.
Source: University of Guelph
Publication date: 8/10/2018
Dirty Feed, Done Dirt Cheap: Are Consumers Who Shell Out for Organic Meat Eating a Bunch of Bull?
By Brian Barth on August 9, 2018
Illustration by Brian Stauffer
America imports staggering amounts of organic grain from abroad—which allows for sleight of hand during shipping and opens the door to tainted feed. Are consumers who shell out for organic meat eating a bunch of bull?
Many Americans assume that anything labeled “USDA Organic” hails from the USA. And for produce, at least, the assumption typically holds true, with the exception of obvious imports like mangoes or coffee beans or tomatoes in January. But the farther an item is removed from the soil, the greater the possibility it harbors ingredients farmed abroad. One needn’t reach the tail end of the supply chain, where the frozen breakfast burritos dwell, to find foreign inputs. Just consider the steak in your butcher’s case. A cow must jump through multiple hoops before earning USDA certification. While the animal may have grazed on chemical-free Iowa pasture all summer, what did it eat during the off-season and where were the feed’s ingredients grown?
Chances are, not here. Although the United States remains the world’s largest exporter of conventional grain, we now import a hefty chunk of the organic stuff. Roughly 70 percent of our organic soybean supply, and some 40 percent of the organic corn consumed domestically, originates overseas. Between 2013 and 2016 alone, the amount America spent on imported organic soy leapt from $110 million to $250 million, and on imported organic corn from $36 million to $160 million. As a result, the bottom fell out of the U.S. market: Prices for organic soy plummeted from $26 to $18 per bushel, and organic corn from $14 to $7.50 a bushel—less than what it costs most American farmers to produce the crops.
A number of these growers found the sudden spike in imports suspicious. Beyond questions regarding food security and food miles, the glut of foreign grain raised regulatory concerns, especially given the three-year transition period required for organic certification. How could the USDA possibly enforce its strict standards on a rapidly expanding global playing field?
“I knew something was up,” says John Bobbe, executive director of OFARM, a marketing co-op that represents several hundred organic grain growers across 19 states. In May 2016, Bobbe needed to move corn from Illinois farms to an Indiana feed mill, and had a tough time finding anybody to haul the load. Turns out, a much bigger gig was drawing Midwestern truckers: A cargo ship called the Federal Nakagawa had just docked in Burns Harbor, Indiana, with 25 million pounds of feed corn in its hold. “That’s as much as 50 of our farms produce in a year,” explains Bobbe, who doubted the corn was organic when he discovered its country of origin.
Turkey lacks the flat, fertile plains needed to support export-scale corn and soy production. The politically volatile nation also has a history of attempting to export fraudulent organic goods to the European Union, according to a 2016 report from the USDA’s own Foreign Agricultural Service. Yet, that year, we imported $118 million worth of organic corn from Turkey, more than twice the amount the United States purchased from all other countries combined. The amount we spent on organic Turkish soybeans rose 268-fold between 2013 and 2016.
Bobbe soon heard of other ships delivering purportedly organic grain from Turkey to our ports. In September 2016, he turned over the names of the vessels, and one particularly suspicious importer, to the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP), which is charged with ensuring the integrity of the organic seal. “The NOP told me it was too late to investigate,” he says. “I think it was more like, ‘We don’t want to bother.’”
Then, in February of last year, Peter Whoriskey, a reporter at The Washington Post, got in touch. Plying industry informants and Freedom of Information Act requests, Whoriskey managed to unearth shipping documents and other paperwork that laid bare a lucrative laundering scheme. His May 2017 article detailed three shipments of conventional grain that magically turned “organic” as they crossed the sea. All three came through Turkey, but at least two originated in other countries. “Lo and behold, the NOP started looking into it,” recalls Bobbe.
So just how, exactly, does the USDA go about certifying crops grown overseas? In the case of some countries (Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Korea, and the 28 European Union nations), the agency basically takes their word for it, via “equivalency arrangements” that acknowledge a foreign government’s organic standards as equivalent to ours. America has also signed “recognition agreements” with Israel, India, and New Zealand, recognizing certifiers accredited by those governments. Everywhere else, a USDA-accredited certifier must perform the inspection.
You might be surprised to learn that, of the 80 third-party, organic-certification agencies accredited by the USDA, 32 are based in foreign countries. Bobbe believes that’s part of the problem. “There is no way the NOP has the manpower to monitor them,” he insists, pointing out that only six or so auditors, none stationed abroad, are tasked with overseeing all the paperwork submitted by organic certifiers worldwide. He also faults the NOP for failing to inspect inbound cargo. U.S. Customs and Border Protection might, but those agents aren’t trained to scrutinize organic-certification documents. “Your chances of getting caught with a shipload of fake organic grain are next to nil,” Bobbe says. And should you get caught, the maximum fine per violation is $11,000—not much of a deterrent when millions can be made off a single shipment of fake organic corn.
Kelly Damewood, director of policy and government affairs at one of the largest certification agencies in this country, California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), agrees that the NOP needs more funding, though she warns against overstating the lapses. “In the rare cases of fraud, it can often be traced back to an uncertified handler,” says Damewood. “Technically, if you are not repacking it, processing it, relabeling it, or turning it into anything else—if you are just a pass-through entity—then you are not required to have certification.” Last September, CCOF started requiring the companies it certifies to complete a new form, verifying that every handler is complying with organic standards.
That same month, following a strongly worded directive from the USDA Office of Inspector General, the NOP issued new guidelines for certifiers aimed at closing loopholes along the supply chain. The agency also stopped a freighter named the Diana Bolten as it arrived in Bellingham, Washington, loaded with “organic” corn for the same importer associated with the Federal Nakagawa. Sources with knowledge of the incident told Bobbe that a portion of the shipment was rejected by the USDA as fraudulent. The USDA declined Modern Farmer’s request for comment on the matter.
Another sign of progress: Last September, Representatives John Faso (R-NY) and Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) introduced the Organic Farmer and Consumer Protection Act, which would authorize $5 million for the NOP to upgrade its enforcement systems and technologies, and mandate ongoing budget increases at a rate that matches the growth of the organic sector. The bill has garnered broad bipartisan support, with a mix of co-sponsors from both parties, including celebrated food-movement champions like Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME).
“This is the system working more or less as it’s supposed to,” says Mark Lipson, a former organic and sustainable agriculture policy advisor at the USDA. Lipson worries that extrapolating a few specific, if glaring, fraudulent incidents into a systemic indictment of the NOP risks undermining public confidence in the organic label—and would be unjustified. “The Washington Post report demonstrated that the enforcement structure needed to catch up with the growth in the market, but the National Organic Program still works better than a lot of other regulatory divisions,” says Lipson.
Bobbe isn’t so sure. While the amount of certified organic grain flowing in from Turkey has decreased since 2016, to approximately $80 million apiece for soy and corn last year, his network of farmers continues to suffer. One of them, Bob Stuczynski of Amherst, Wisconsin, says, “Organic farmers in America can hardly move their corn unless they want to fire-sale it.” Stuczynski estimates that he’s lost tens of thousands of dollars in revenue over the past couple years. And an OFARM analysis found that imported organic grain cost U.S. farmers a total of $300 million to $400 million from 2015 through 2017.
Bobbe recently attended a conference convened by the European Organic Certifiers Council and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements in Odessa, Ukraine, across the Black Sea from Turkey—an apropos location. Some of Bobbe’s E.U. counterparts are convinced the Turkish mafia is barging in conventional corn from Ukraine and other Black Sea countries, then shipping it out as organic to Europe and North America. “It’s an international crime syndicate,” he says.
A final piece of the puzzle has even more of a conspiracy-theory ring to it. The nations surrounding the Black Sea, like Kazakhstan and Armenia, generally do not produce corn and soybeans on a significant scale. But there is one giant exception, and its grain exports are booming of late. “Russia!” says Bobbe, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s the elephant in the room.”
USDA Releases Materials For Fall National Organic Standards Board Meeting
By urbanagnews
September 14, 2018
From the Coalition For Sustainable Organics
The USDA has published the pre-meeting materials on their website for the Fall 2018 National Organic Standards Board meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota to be held from October 24-26. The Discussion Documents and Formal Proposals do NOT include anything specific to greenhouse, container, hydroponic, aeroponic or aquaponic production systems. Those topics remain on the inactive work agenda of the National Organic Standards Board in spite of calls from an NOSB member to place the topic back on the active agenda.
In addition to the review of materials for the National List, the NOSB will review other topics including research priorities, strengthening the requirements for the use of organic seed in crop production, further defining excluded plant breeding methods, criteria for accreditation oversight and training and oversight of inspectors among others.
If you would like to give verbal comments directly to the members of the NOSB and to the broader organic community, you may sign up through the following links for the webinars on October 16 and 18 or in person on October 24/25. The deadline to sign up is October 4 or until all of the speaking slots have been allocated. Those slots have filled up before the deadline for the last several meetings.
You may also submit written comments for the public record by October 4.
USDA Assists Vertical Farmers With Funding, Research
Imagine walking into your local grocery story on a frigid January day to pick up freshly harvested lettuce, fragrant basil, juicy sweet strawberries, and ripe red tomatoes – all of which were harvested at a local farm only hours before you’d arrived. You might be imagining buying that fresh produce from vertical farms where farmers can grow indoors year-round by controlling light, temperature, water, and oftentimes carbon dioxide levels as well. Generally, fresh produce grown in vertical farms travels only a few miles to reach grocery store shelves compared to conventional produce, which can travel thousands of miles by truck or plane.
by Sarah Federman and Paul M. Zankowski
Beyond providing fresh local produce, vertical agriculture could help increase food production and expand agricultural operations as the world’s population is projected to exceed 9 billion by 2050. And by that same year, two out of every three people are expected to live in urban areas. Producing fresh greens and vegetables close to these growing urban populations could help meet growing global food demands in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way by reducing distribution chains to offer lower emissions, providing higher-nutrient produce, and drastically reducing water usage and runoff.
Indoor and vertical farming may be part of the solution to rising demands for food and limited natural resources. Photo credit: Oasis Biotech
Recently, USDA and the Department of Energy held a stakeholder workshop focused on vertical agriculture and sustainable urban ecosystems. At this workshop, field experts shared thought-provoking presentations followed by small group discussions focusing on areas such as plant breeding, pest management, and engineering. Workshop attendees from public and private sectors worked together to identify the challenges, needs, and opportunities for vertical farming. A report on this workshop will be released to help inform Departmental strategic planning efforts for internal research priorities at USDA and external funding opportunities for stakeholders and researchers.
We’re excited about the potential opportunities vertical agriculture presents to address food security. That’s why USDA already has some of these funding and research opportunities in place. The National Institute for Food and Agriculture has funding opportunities (PDF, 1.22 MB) that could support future vertical agriculture conferences and research. Similarly, the Agricultural Research Service is working on a project to increase U.S. tomato production and quality in greenhouses and other protected environments. We look forward to continuing our partnership with our customers, both internal and external.
Source: USDA
Publication date: 8/20/2018