Fresh Produce Safety Task Force

Agenda

Fresh Produce Safety Task Force

December 7th 1-4 pm

103 Schaub Hall

Introductions (10 min)

Chris Gunter NCSU Horticulture (Co-Chair)

Mary Lewis FDA

Committee reports

Education: Annette Dunlap and Keith Baldwin (Grants) (30 minutes)

Curriculum Development

Time line

Presentations given to date

Industry/Policy: Debbie Hamrick (45 minutes)

Report on Growers meetings

Meeting plans

Discussion of how best to use growers and how to attract

commodity groups

Research: Trevor Phister (10 minutes)

Research Grants submitted

Discussion

Communication- Chris Gunter moderator (45 minutes)

Between members:

Wiki, List-serve

Closed FAQ site on website

With Growers

Website (Diane Ducharme)

Newsletter

Logo

Survey of Agents/growers

Involvement of FCS agents

Strategic Planning

Schedule next meeting (10 minutes)

Meeting Minutes

Attending:

Trevor Phister, John Rushing, Keith Baldwin, Lee-Ann Jaykus, Debbie Hamrick, Ronnie Wynne, Garry Grabow, Maria Noriega, Billy Little, Garry Bradley, Mary Lewis, Gene Cross, Jonathan Schultheis, also via IPVideo: Cathy Hohenstein, Sherrie Peeler, Diane Ducharme, Jean Burton

Introductions (10 min)

Chris Gunter NCSU Horticulture, Mary Lewis FDA, Cathy Hohenstein NCSU FCS, Sherrie Peeler NCSU FCS, Jean Burton NCSU FCS

Committee Reports

Education:

Grant Update – Keith Baldwin has a CSREES grant and a subcontract with ASAP to train farmers and agents in GAPs. Met two weeks ago for the grant that Annette Dunlap received from the Tobacco Trust Fund to educate agents statewide. Group broke the subject matter down into 8 modules using the resources from Billy Little. The goal is to develop this into a curriculum for use by agents with the help of a curriculum coordinator. This will be used to train agents, growers and packinghouse personnel.

Food Safety Presentations - North Carolina Horticulture Council, Strawberry Expo, Apple Growers, Carolina Farm Stewardship, Haywood County Growers (including farm workers), Cabbage Growers (East), and Potato Growers (East). In the near future a full session at the Southeast Vegetable and Fruit Expo (including the keynote address) and at the Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium

Industry/Policy:

Debbie Hamrick reported that there has been no action in the legislature at the state level, though a lot of efforts are happening in Washington right now. A report was given about the recent grower meetings held in both the east and west part of the state. Debbie invited members of the industry represented blueberries, sweet potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, melons, strawberries, peppers, greens, lettuce, brambles, smaller acreage farms with mixed commodities, and large tomato grower/packers to those meetings. In the east, consensus regarding food safety revolved around buyers dictating the rules and buyers will tell producers what is required. In the west there was a consensus that the growers wanted food safety plans, specific information on GAPs and to know how they could initiate this process. There was also mention that education was needed by both consumers and during the shipping and handling stages of the supply chain.

Debbie Hamrick reported that growers at both meetings mentioned the GOT2BNC program and that it could be made to mean something regarding food safety of produce grown in North Carolina. John rushing asked about the attitude of small growers in the west towards food safety rules. Diane Ducharme mentioned they want to comply, they are want to meet the regulations. Debbie Hamrick continued that growers in the west want regulations to be scale neutral, that water quality is a key concern as most of them are using surface water for irrigation and that they are anxious to know which commodity specific risk factors apply to their operations. There was some discussion about hand washing stations and the expense of these to small growers (subsistence growers) with few employees. Maria Noriega mentioned that commercial hand washing stations can be expensive, but the University may have people (Ag. Engineers and others) that can work on alternatives to expensive stations and there was consensus that this could be done.

There was a question raised by growers in the west regarding the fate of the product when it leaves the farm, who is liable if the truck is dirty or the distribution house is dirty? John Rushing mentioned that in the food processing industry, the manufacturer is encouraged to be the regulator of the next step. He said that liability is shared until it is eaten by the consumer. Keith Baldwin and others mentioned that a module for agent/grower education regarding liability is being developed as part of the prior mentioned Tobacco Trust Fund grant.

Debbie Hamrick detailed the list of North Carolina fruit and vegetable grower associations detailed the amount of commodity money generated in the top agricultural counties, and the value of the top commodities for the state. She posed the following question to the group for discussion, how do we bring growers and the industry to the food safety task force table? This topic must be perceived as important enough by growers and the associations must perceive it as important. It was also mentioned that distributors and repackers should be represented also. John Rushing noted that the governmental regulators are currently debating this and were not likely to hand down regulations soon. He mentioned that it will be buyer driven and that 3rd party audits will likely be necessary just to be perceived as producing safe produce. He also said that growers are banding together as commodity organizations and releasing their own guidelines. He mentioned that a basic food safety plan was a fundamental step for growers and that it must train employees and also managers about the importance of food safety. Cathy Hohenstein mentioned that consumers will need training and education also. John Rushing continued by mentioning that there are lawyers that are ready to begin suing the industry for food related illnesses.

Jonathan Schultheis mentioned the NC Horticulture Council could be used to speak for the group of producers. Debbie Hamrick noted that NC Horticulture Council is rebuilding and that no umbrella group exists to speak as a unified voice for the producers in the state. Chris Gunter said that currently growers are members of advisory boards that feed into the Food Safety Task Force, but we need them at this table as members.

Debbie Hamrick asked how we can get them to come to the table? John Rushing suggested having them appointed by the Governor. Trevor Phister also mentioned restaurants, distributors, and transporters need to be at the table too. Gene Cross mentioned the Governor has food security task force that includes grocery stores and distributors. Maria Noriega suggested that farm workers may also need to be represented. Trevor Phister noted that satellite communication sites may make these meetings less problematic to attend. Keith Baldwin cautioned that making the meeting very large will limit the number of people present that are actually participating in the meeting. This will diminish the value of the meeting those people and they will stop participating. Jonathan Schultheis noted that if people are on the agenda they are forced to participate, have something for them to do if they are going to be participants. Chris Gunter suggested that their participation will be critical in the industry subcommittee and will be increasingly important in the future. Debbie Hamrick mentioned that we do not want to lose the grower group’s voice in the discussion of food safety.

John Rushing mentioned in order to get an appointment by the Governor you need the grower names, and to make a request of the Governor. Debbie Hamrick suggested it could be a growers that are familiar with the farm to school program, sweet potatoes, a large tomato producer, a leafy green producer and a cantaloupe producer also. Debbie suggested this could be brought to the public policy subcommittee for further discussion.

Research: Trevor Phister mentioned that he and Lee-Ann Jaykus are writing a grant with a specific bent toward virus transmission. North Carolina is also participating in a water quality survey with 16 other states. Commodity group funding has also been applied for to look at water quality surveying. Garry Grabow noted that lots of groups in the past have looked at water quality and that sampling protocols from these groups exist.

Chris Gunter asked if it was possible to remediate surface water for use in irrigation. Garry Grabow noted that there were questions that need to be answered about minimizing risk before moving to a costly step to disinfect water. John Rushing noted that the question about water quality is even more basic than disinfection. He noted that there is not a clear consensus about what metrics are to be used and if they will be crop specific. John Rushing also noted that a lot of groups are giving input into which metrics should be used, but it is hard to interpret which metrics should be used. Garry Grabow noted that guidance exists, but only for reclaimed water from human waste. Trevor Phister suggested that the researchers interested in the issue of water quality should sit down as a group and get a baseline of these metrics and of water quality in general.

Open Discussion

Integrating the work of Family and Consumer Science into the Food Safety Taskforce

Jean Burton began with a discussion of how consumer education regarding produce safety is not at a level that it should be. She noted that there is a definite need for education and a desire to integrate that education with the group wherever possible. She noted that growers may be driven by what buyers demand and that in the case of direct sales at farmers markets the consumer is the buyer. Sherrie Peeler noted that training for agriculture agents also needs to include family and consumer science agents also. She noted that FCS agents could be addressed as a group at their state meetings. Cathy Hohenstein said that a representative FCS agent from each district could be responsible for food safety from the FCS side and that the FCS agents could represent the consumer side of the equation to the growers. Jean Burton asked if agriculture agents are comfortable teaching the worker health and hygiene sessions. Keith Baldwin noted that training for agents statewide has always been envisioned to include an agent not necessarily an agriculture agent from the counties. Cathy Hohenstein asked if growers are doing anything to alert consumers about what they are doing regarding food safety. Trevor Phister noted that this would be a necessary part of the regime. Jean Burton suggested that FCS and agriculture agents could integrate on a county by county basis. Trevor Phister suggested training an FCS and agriculture agent as a team.

Communication

Between members: Chris Gunter updated the group on the food safety taskforce Wiki ncfoodsafety.pbwiki.com established to facilitate comments on the food safety plan template. Also a consensus was given to establish a list-serve for the taskforce. Support was given to establish a closed FAQ site on the wiki website. John Rushing noted that the food safety plan is currently only a template.

With Growers: Diane Ducharme gave details about the current food safety taskforce website extensionfoodsafety.org. She noted that this address currently redirects you to the Henderson County website, which is the only site she had the ability to alter. She requested input from the FCS folks for the consumer side of the website. She noted that the commercial grower side was the most developed part of the site. She asked for feedback on this part of the site also. Diane Ducharme mentioned that the site was originally developed as a resource repository. Debbie Hamrick praised Diane for the great website and asked how it should be publicized. Trevor Phister noted it could be publicized through commodity group newsletters. Billy Little suggested the horticulture agent list serve also. The discussion of the newsletter for the group was also discussed briefly. There was consensus that a newsletter was needed. Questions were raised regarding the frequency, format and sections to be included; however the discussion was tabled at John Rushing’s suggestion. The logo that was found in Doug Sanders files was agreed upon to be used for the group with some minor modifications.

Strategic Planning for the Task Force

Chris Gunter suggested that strategic planning for the group was emerging as a necessity. He noted that with the addition of significant input from members of the industry and with the addition of a separate subcommittee addressing industry specific information generally agreed upon by the group. Julia Kornegay from the department of Horticultural Science volunteered to act as the moderator for the session and that it should happen as soon as possible. Keith Baldwin noted that the PODs section (NCSU) would also be a good group to use for this type of planning. Consensus from the group was that February would be the earliest that group members were available and two dates were selected as possibilities, February 8 and 15. Chris Gunter is going to check into this further for the group.