Tracing food from farm to table Posted by Daniela at 07/08/08 04:12 PM

We’ve been saying that food would be safer if the nation implemented existing technologies to trace food from farm to table. Now The Washington Post is saying it, too!

WHEN WE wrote last month about the outbreak of the rare Saintpaul strain of salmonella bacteria, the prime suspects were Roma, red plum and red round tomatoes. Now they have company. The Food and Drug Administration is casting a wary eye on jalapeno peppers and the ingredients for salsa (cilantro and serrano peppers). If the agency had the ability to require food producers to track their products from "farm to fork," finding the source of an outbreak wouldn't be like playing pin the tail on the chipotle....

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) ... points out that the technology exists to trace food and produce from the farm to the dinner table. It's time that Congress put that technology to work to protect the food supply. Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who is shepherding the act through the House, must ensure that traceability is included in the final bill. The two provisions together would make a relatively safe food supply that much safer. We urge Congress to get this done -- before chips and beer are implicated next.

Every time people get sick or die from food they eat, our government spends our tax dollars to try and find the source and warn Americans what to avoid eating. When they must spend weeks on a fruitless search, it costs us all a lot more. This time, the agency had to widen the search after it couldn’t find the source. So now there are more foods that may or may not cause illness, but we don’t really know. We’ll have more to say on food traceability systems in the coming weeks, but for now I’m happy that The Washington Post agrees it should be a priority.

July 9 UPDATE: The New York Times gets on board the traceability train!

Last week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Consumer Federation of America called on Dr. von Eschenbach to use his authority to require the food industry to put in place a detailed tracking system to follow produce from farm to fork. This is a good idea.

Some food producers already track their products. Others could add information to the stickers already on many fruits and vegetables to identify where they are grown and how they are distributed. Those stickers could act as tiny tracking documents allowing investigators to see quickly how the nation’s produce moves from field to final destination.

comments (9)

1 Posted by Myra Savas at 07/09/08 08:52 PM

It is a shame that the richest nation in the history of the world, has the most adulterated food in the world. A simple farmer in a third world country has the most safest, wholesome and nutritional food. And we are poisoning all our food and then want to ship it to other countries. Shameful.

2 Posted by Sigmund Rosen, msw at 07/24/08 08:41 AM

The REAL issue is the disregard for the health and sanitation needs[as well as the educational needs of their children] of the farm workers. The laws are rarely followed about latrines, exposure to chemicals, showers, and rest periods-- the states must step in and
provide these if necessary to harvesters in the form of an army of mobile facilities making the rounds of the plantations. these should also include health workers, teachers, and cultural/spiritual personnel. The costs to be shared by the states and the huge agro conglomerates which routinely deny basic benefits/pensions to these workers.

3 Posted by Donna at 07/24/08 09:10 AM

If they can do it for the athletes at the Olympics, why not for the general public here in the states?? Same principle.

4 Posted by Matthew at 07/24/08 09:51 AM

Now it appears that the Mexican-grown jalepeno might be the source. We need to increase screening of our imported foods as well as our homegrown commodities.

5 Posted by LINDA SUNKLE-PIERUCKI at 07/24/08 10:12 AM

All of the tracking plans and rules HERE wont help a bit when you have so many fruits and vegetables being imported-through an increasingly lax import system under NAFTA-from Central America. Most of central America's produce is grown under third-world conditions using first-world mega-farming methods. Sanitation is lip-service sketchy at best. . .thats one reason prices are cheaper. Much also is grown under contract to major agribiz growers here and imported produce is mixed with domestic before final shipping.

Add that to the political pressures placed on the FDA from both domestic agri-biz contributors and the BIG NAFTA influences-including Mexico's government, and you have a "safety" agency that dances around the subject, destroys domestic grower's profits and tries to shift public focus to domestic growers while studiously ignoring the obvious: given the pattern of illnesses and the growing seasons in effect at the time, it was obvious Mexican-grown produce was the culprit.

The FDA has YET to actually point the finger-we are now looking at an in-country wholesaler, who got the produce from Mexico! As to how much investigation is being done on small farms in a foreign country that usually relies on bribes and pay-offs to solve sticky problems, it is questionable the true source will ever be identified.

The ONLY way food safety can ever be guaranteed under such a screwed-up system is to test every single piece of produce at the border. Even better, grow and consume our own domestic produce here where we have real safety standards and better methods of tracing tainted products.

Refuse to buy foreign-produced produce and demand country of origin labeling on every food product.The FDA cant even keep up with what's going on in THIS country-expecting them to police the world is both dis-ingenuous and highly cost-prohibitive.

6 Posted by Sharon at 07/24/08 11:23 AM

The true cause of the outbreak was found by a guy in Minnesota in about a week. The FDA knew it was coming from pico, knew people in Texas and New Mexico were getting sick in Mexican restaurants, know that a majority of all our produce is imported from Mexico, and they couldn't pinpoint the cause or where it was coming from. Give me a break. Apparently the Feds think we are all idiots. All they care about is money and greed and they are willing to kill a few Americans to keep the Washington gravy train going.

7 Posted by Norman G. Walker at 07/24/08 01:48 PM

I strongly support all efforts that enable us to trace the origin our produce and meat. Further more I fully support federal inspections of all of our cattle and livestock before it enters the slaughter house. This nation can ill afford what happened in Britain with the "Mad cow disease." I was in England at the time and it threatened every beef eater.

8 Posted by DEBORAH at 07/24/08 08:42 PM

Are these fruits and vegetables generically engineered?

9 Posted by Anne at 07/29/08 03:51 PM

I encourage all to use pasteurized eggs; one less food to worry about. Sure, they cost more, but I feel good about serving them to my family and friends, and I can use them in dressings uncooked and don't worry about eating the cookie dough either. If your store doesn't carry them, ask them to stock them. They taste great and no worry!!