Task Force Works To Keep Produce Safe And Profitable In North Carolina

When the scare about possible Salmonella contamination in tomatoes broke in June 2008, North Carolina growers worried. They were concerned that newscasts would lead consumers to believe that all tomatoes were implicated when, in fact, tomatoes grown in North Carolina were not implicated nor part of the recall. North Carolina growers’ big chance to sell hits in early August, and the potential drop in market demand and prices would mean losing much of what they’d already invested in crop production. They needed information, and they needed it fast.

Task Force Co-chairs

Enter N.C. Cooperative Extension experts, who quickly distributed information on Salmonella and tomatoes, including FDA updates, to the state’s 101 Extension Centers, to the news media and to members of the N.C. Fresh Produce Safety Task Force. The Task Force then organized a conference call in which growers, industry representatives and state and government members got information straight from the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences Food and Drug Protection Division, university experts and others. The task force didn’t have to scramble to organize the call; representatives from all of these groups had already been working together for more than a year.

That’s just one example of how the task force works to put North Carolina growers ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping produce safe while staying competitive. The task force is led by three co-chairs—Trevor Phister, assistant professor of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Science at N.C State; Chris Gunter, assistant professor of Horticultural Sciences at N.C. State and Diane Ducharme, Extension associate for horticulture and food safety, Program for Value-Added and Alternative Agriculture.

They lead the group in its work to connect people that care about fresh produce; fill in knowledge gaps for growers with information backed by research; and help growers, policy makers, and county Extension agents respond to outbreaks and other emergencies swiftly.

The group formed in response to the 2006 outbreak of E. coli contamination on spinach in other states. Part of the Governor’s Task Force on Food Safety and Defense, the Fresh Produce Safety Task Force includes not only researchers and Extension agents, but also representatives from the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, the N.C. Farm Bureau, the food industry, numerous agricultural associations and growers themselves.

“If you’re a strawberry grower, you may not know an apple producer or a watermelon producer,” says Debbie Hamrick, Director of Specialty Crops for N.C. Farm Bureau. “The task force is cutting across all those barriers and getting people to come together for the core cause of making produce safe.”

The work is increasingly important as growers, buyers and the general public become more aware of the possibility of contamination. “There has been an increase in outbreaks associated with fresh produce over the last ten years,” Phister says. Ducharme adds that growers are beginning to feel pressure from their markets. “We’re getting a push from growers because the people that they sell to are requesting that they implement some food safety measures,” she says.

Chris Gunter
Gunter, a horticultural scientist, and Phister, a microbiologist, work closely on research and education projects. “As a microbiologist, I’ve really been interested in bacteria that cause disease, and I’ve been on farms a number of times. But Chris understands how to take the information I know and translate it to problems that occur in the field,” Phister says. Ducharme, whose background is in horticulture and plant pathology, creates and leads much of the outreach and extension material development, including pulling together the latest research. To quickly coordinate and disseminate information during the recent Salmonella on tomatoes outbreak, she worked with Leah Chester-Davis, coordinator of communications and community outreach and Extension communication specialist for the Program for Value-Added and Alternative Agriculture. They teamed with the Department of Communication Services and University News Services to reach both internal and external audiences. The two also work closely on the development of this Web site.

Diane Ducharme
The task force is divided into multiple working groups: executive oversight, education, regulation/communication, research, and industry/policy relations. The education group is about to roll out training modules that cover good agricultural practices (GAPs) in produce production and handling, risk management and communications. Workshops will be held in November 2008 and in January and February 2009. “We will use the current infrastructure of Cooperative Extension to train all the agents in North Carolina’s 100 counties, and give them the resources they need to train the growers,” Ducharme says.

The workshops should help the state’s growers implement research-based best practices now, before government or industry requires them. Then, if regulations do happen, the effect on growers will be minimal. Billy Little, an Extension agent in Wilson County and a member of the education working group, says that the work is crucial given that some growers have already received notice from their buyers that contracts will be canceled unless they receive GAPs (Good Agricultural Practices) certification. “We are now seeing most of the major grocery chains start to require it. It’s not a matter of will growers have to be certified, but when,” Little says.

Trevor Phister
Research and education efforts concentrate on areas most likely to be sources of contamination. “That’s usually workers, water and waste,” Gunter says. For example, surface water such as ponds or lakes is often used to irrigate crops. But how safe are they? “We’re looking at two things: do we know what the surface water quality of the state is like, and if there is some contamination, can we come up with a reasonable way to mitigate the contamination? We have a food safety research project that’s looking at those questions in both tomatoes and lettuce,” Gunter says.

The effort is also driven by listening to growers’ needs. For example, growers said they needed an affordable, portable handwashing unit so workers in remote fields could follow good safety practices. So Ducharme called on Rod Gurganus, Extension associate, entrepreneurial horticulture, and a fellow faculty member on the Program for Value-Added & Alternative Agriculture team. Gurganus received $24,000 in grant funding from the Agricultural Advancement Consortium of the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center to have an engineering class at N.C. State develop a prototype. He is working with Dr. Gary Roberson and Dr. Mike Boyette, both of the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, who will lead students in this project. The aim is that growers and supporting industry can go online and download plans to build the unit at low cost.

Doug Patterson of Patterson Farms, a family-owned farm and one of North Carolina’s largest tomato growers, says that the proactive approach of the task force is crucial. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there, even in industry,” Patterson says. “It’s important for us to get correct information out to growers and our buyers and customers. We can hopefully come up with guidelines that are realistic and that can put North Carolina in the forefront of food safety.”

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The Education Working Group of the N.C. Fresh Produce Safety Task Force will hold workshops in November 2008 and January and February 2009 to train Extension agents in good agricultural practices (GAPs) for produce production and handling and risk management. The curricula are divided into nine subject areas, or modules. Below are the module topics, along with the multidisciplinary personnel developing them.

 

Food Safety Hazards Associated with Fresh Produce: Ipek Goktepe and Trevor Phister

Personal Health and Hygiene: Jimo Ibrahim, Maria Noriega and Cathy Hohenstein

Site Selection, Animals and Amendments: Mary Helen Ferguson, Chris Gunter and Billy Little

Field Practices (GAPs): Chris Gunter and Billy Little

Packing Facility (GHPs/GMPs)) Sanitation: Chris Gunter and Billy Little

Water Quality: Keith Baldwin and Garry Grabow

3 T’s: Transportation, Traceback and Traceforward: Diane Ducharme, Darrell Blackwelder, Ronnie Wynn and Wayne Bryant

Risk Management: Rod Rejesus and Ted Feitshans

Crisis/Issues Management Communications: Leah Chester-Davis, Natalie Hampton and Dee Shore