Are you in or are you out? That was one of the first questions Don Stoeckel, a food-safety scientist with Cornell University, posed to the farmers and processors attending his presentation on the federal Food Safety Modernization Act during the Ag Summit in Skagit County, WA, on March 3 and 4. It was a question that many of the people in his audience had on their minds. Just how much were these new regulations going to affect their operations? 
“It (the act) has a pretty serious set of regulations, especially for produce growers,” said Chad Kruger, director of Washington State University’s research center on the west side of the state, just before the start of Stoeckel’s presentation. “It’s enormous,” said farmer Linda Neunzig, referring to the effects of the act on agriculture. “We have to be ready.” Signed into law by President Obama on Jan. 4, 2011, the act is the most sweeping reform of the nation’s food safety laws in 70 years. Its goal is to protect the health of consumers by preventing food from being contaminated in the first place. And as Stoeckel told his audience, the act’s Produce Safety Rule is the “first ever mandatory federal standard for growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of fresh fruit.” Which is why the question, “are you in or are you out?” is so important. Or another way of putting it: Are you covered? Are you going to have to comply with the act’s regulations or will you be exempt ? Covered or exempt? Under the act, farming operations can fall under the Produce Rule or the Preventive Controls Rule, or both, depending on the type of farming operation it is. Fresh produce The Produce Rule covers produce that is grown to be eaten raw. Carrots, berries, cucumbers, grapes, green beans, cantaloupes and tomatoes are just some of the many examples of this. Putting the consumer into the picture, the rule covers raw produce that, if contaminated, could get people sick. That’s important because contamination can be caused by sometimes fatal food pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria. The rule’s definition of produce does not include food grains — the small, hard fruits or seeds of arable crops such as barley, dent-or flint-corn, sorghum, oats, rice, rye, wheat and oilseeds. Exempt from this rule is produce that is rarely consumed raw. This list includes foods that are for the most part cooked before they’re eaten. Examples of these crops are asparagus, corn, pumpkins, cranberries, eggplants, okra, peanuts, winter squash, cashews, coffee beans, figs, peanuts and peppermint. Produce that is grown to go through commercial processing (various types of listed kill steps) is also exempt from the Produce Rule. An example of this would be tomatoes grown to be processed into tomato paste or sauce. In other words, if the produce does have contamination on it, the kill step will take care of it, thus making it safe to eat as long as basic food-safety practices, such as keeping it from coming into contact with raw meat or chicken, are followed. 
The criteria for pre-harvest water quality is 126 or less colony forming units of generic E. coli per 100 mL water geometric mean. And 410 or less CFU generic E. coli per 100 mL water statistical threshold value. Stoeckel also pointed out that a water quality profile is meant to be a long-term management tool, not a short-term operational decision-making tool. “Bottomline,” he said, “water from a source coming into contact with any covered produce needs to be tested to see if it meets the criteria,” he said. If the water source or the quality of the water source (livestock grazing upstream, for example) changes, then you have to start over. Growers can also wait for a certain amount of time before harvest for the contamination from the water to “die off. But this needs to be calculated to determine a credit and also documented. When it comes to harvest and post harvest, water quality is just as, if not more, important. In this case, water used for these purposes must have no detectable generic E. coli per 100 mL sample. In other words, it has to be very clean. In addition to direct contact with covered produce, this also applies to water coming into contact with surfaces, water used to make ice, and water used for handwashing. Untreated surface water may not be used for any of these purposes. As for ground water, Stoeckel said that because it generally doesn’t vary as much in quality as surface water, only four samples need to be taken in the first year. After that, only one sample per year will need to be taken. Compliance dates for water quality surveys and use criteria are Jan. 26, 2022, for very small farms (doing $25,000 to $250,000 in business); Jan. 26, 2021, for small farms (doing $250,000 to $500,000 in business); and Jan 26, 2020, for other farms (doing more than $500,000 in business). Training is key to food safety Although there are approximately 190,000 farms in the United States growing fresh produce, many of them are too small to be covered under the food safety act. Even so, Stoeckel said that 35,000 of them will need to go through training. Under these requirements, at least one supervisor or responsible person for a farm must have successfully completed food-safety training at least equivalent to training recognized as adequate by the FDA. Farmworkers All employees, including temporary, part time, seasonal and contracted personnel who handle covered produce or food-contact surfaces, or who are supervisors of these employees must receive adequate training as it relates to the employee’s duties, upon hiring and periodically thereafter at least once a year. The employees must be able to easily understand the person training them. Field harvesters. Employees who harvest food must be trained so they can recognize when covered produce must not be harvested because of contamination risks, such as animal poop. They must also be trained in how to inspect harvest containers and equipment to make sure they are clean and maintained and working properly so they don’t become a source of contamination. Along those same lines, the workers need to be trained to either correct any problems they see or report them to a supervisor. “All of this is really key, because the FDA wants to prevent the harvesting of compromised produce in the first place,” said Stoeckel. After Stoeckel’s presentation, Mauricio Soto of Viva Farms said that everyone working on a farm needs to know about food safety. “It all starts with relationships,” he said, referring to the farmworkers and the managers and owners. “If a farm abuses those relationships, things won’t go well. It’s challenging but not impossible.” 