Posted September 22, 2014
The Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) has revised a food safety proposal affecting
Oregon onion farmers, according to an Oregon Live article by Lynne Terry
available here.
Capital Press also published an article available here.
The revision
would require farmers to meet irrigation water recreational standards.
According to producers, the regulation could force onion farmers in eastern
Oregon to go out of business due to their dependence on irrigation water that
does not meet recreational water standards as defined by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
The
revision also includes a provision that would allow “farmers whose water
initially doesn’t meet the microbial standards to meet them through different
means.” The provision establishes an interval from the last day of irrigation
until harvest to allow for potentially dangerous microbes to “die off,”
according to Capital
Press.
However,
the farmers are still required to test the water for pathogens, according to Oregon
Live.
"I'm
disappointed that we're still being required to test the water and to use
recreational water quality standards," said Kay Riley, manager of Snake
River Produce in Nyssa and former president of the National Onion Association.
"They're giving us a means to survive the standard. I'm happy about that.
But I'm not jumping for joy that they gave me everything I wanted for
Christmas."
The FDA
will be accepting comments on the proposal here
beginning September 29 for 75 days.
For more
information, a pre-publication PDF version of the proposal is available here.
For more information on food safety, please visit the National
Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
