Posted October 16, 2013
While many agencies of the U.S. government have been
shut down since October 1, food safety audits on leafy greens farm have
continued through the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA),
according to a Western Farm Press article available here.
LGMA auditors are certified and licensed by the USDA,
but they are not direct employees of the federal government. The California Department of Food and Agriculture
oversees the auditors. In addition, the
audit program is fully funded by the leafy greens community through mandatory
government assessments.
Through the LGMA, handlers must be in compliance with
100 percent of the required standards and must correct any citations or risk
decertification.
The LGMA “believes this public-private partnership is
the best model for food safety because it is a system in which industry and
government work together to ensure safe food.
The leafy greens industry, for its part, works with scientists and food
safety experts in a transparent process to develop science-based food safety
standards, or metrics. The government then
works independently to ensure these practices are being followed on farms.”
The California LGMA was created in response to the
lethal E. coli outbreaks in 2006 involving spinach and lettuce grown in
California. The LGMA requires
participants to use “Leafy Greens Good Agricultural Practices” to improve food
safety. California was the first in the
nation to use a marketing agreement to improve food safety. For more information on the regulatory
response to the E.Coli outbreak in California leafy greens, an article by Matthew Kohnke in the Drake Journal of Agricultural Law, is available here.
Marketing agreements are designed to stabilize market conditions for a certain agricultural commodity. Marketing agreements are voluntary and only binding on those growers, handlers, processors, or others engaged in handling who sign on to the agreement. For more information on marketing agreements and food safety, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here and here.
