California’s Abundant Agricultural Commodities Stay Gold

The value of U.S. lettuce production in 2013 totaled nearly $1.5 billion, making lettuce the nation’s leading vegetable crop in terms of value, according to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. (The most current information available as we go to press.)

The growing of California leafy greens is concentrated in three geographic areas.

The Central Coast is the largest growing region with many farms around the cities of Salinas, Santa Maria, and Oxnard. While most products are grown here from April to November, some products can be grown year round.

The San Joaquin Valley Region, spanning the middle of the state, has two brief growing seasons in the spring and fall that fill the gap between Central Coast and Desert lettuce production.

Farmers in the Desert Region grow lettuce and other leafy green products in the winter months, which makes it possible for consumers to feast on fresh salad all year long.

In 2006, a landmark food safety crisis tossed the California leafy greens salad bowl in dramatic, tornado-like fashion. That year, a widely publicized outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 was traced to organic bagged fresh spinach (which was sold as conventional produce) grown on a 50-acre farm in San Benito County, Calif.

As per CDC’s final update on the incident, dated Oct. 6, 2006, 199 persons infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 were reported to CDC from 26 states.

Among the ill persons, 102 were hospitalized and 31 developed hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure. Three deaths were attributed to the outbreak.

A follow-up report by the CDC and a joint report by the California Department of Health Services and FDA concluded that the probable source of the outbreak was an Angus cattle ranch that had leased land to the impacted spinach grower.

The report found 26 samples of E. coli “indistinguishable from the outbreak strain” in water and cattle manure on this cattle ranch, some within a mile from the contaminated spinach fields.

Although officials could not definitively say how the spinach became contaminated, both reports cited the presence of feral swine on the ranch and the proximity of surface waterways to irrigation wells as “potential environmental risk factors.” The reports further mentions that flaws in the spinach producer’s transportation and processing systems could have additionally contributed to the contamination.

“This 2006 E. coli outbreak associated with spinach from California had both human and economic costs, and it definitely woke our state’s leafy greens industry up,” says Scott Horsfall, MA, chief executive officer of the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement (LGMA).

As a result of pressure on the produce industry that followed the outbreak and the related government reports, among other factors, LGMA was established as a stringent food safety program designed to reduce the risk of contamination from pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella on leafy green vegetables, Horsfall explains.

“At the heart of LGMA is a set of food safety practices, highlighted in a document entitled ‘Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidelines for the Production and Harvest of Lettuce and Leafy Greens’ that are implemented on leafy greens farms throughout the state and verified through frequent government audits,” he elaborates. “University and industry scientists, food safety experts, government officials, farmers, shippers, and processors contributed expertise, information, and insights to develop these practices and this unique and rigorous food safety system.”

The LGMA food safety practices cover five key areas, including general requirements such as a compliance plan, an up-to-date list of growers, and a written trace back program; environmental assessments that address animal intrusions, flooding, and proximity to animal feeding operations; water use involving extensive testing and record-keeping; soil amendments showcasing extensive testing, and certification and record keeping for soil amendments such as compost, and fertilizers; and work practices and field operations that verify compliance with personnel practices and field sanitation.