Safety of fruits and vegetables

The produce industry is remarkably diverse in size, marketing outlets, and crops. Supplying even the largest and most well-known labels are legions of marketing firms that rely on small growers, and many family farms sell directly to supermarkets and restaurants. Produce Marketing Association, which represents those who grow and market fresh fruits and vegetables to consumers, supports toughening the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate produce with rules based on risk and specific to the unique attributes of individual fruits and vegetables.

Small farmers, in fact, will suffer if FDA regulates everyone but them. Such an exemption will rob them of existing markets and shut off new opportunities. Buyers, including retailers and restaurants, appropriately demand strict adherence to food safety requirements, and small growers looking to avoid federal requirements will have to find other places in which to sell. PMA, with its members, trains small growers on food safety so that they may meet the needs of supermarkets and food service. It links some of the largest marketers to local growers. If federal food safety laws exempt small growers, the rising demand for their products will decline and local growers will find their options narrowed, their returns reduced.

Food safety is not about large or small. It is about protecting the consumer and it is about risk. Exempting growers based on size not only incorrectly assumes these growers are not part of traditional marketing channels, it falsely assumes that risk resides only with large farms. Current research demonstrates that the most common forms of foodborne illness do not discriminate between a large and small produce farm. In the past several years, we have seen food safety incidents involving farms of various sizes including incidents linked to farmers markets. The political debate about big versus small just does not apply to the marketplace or to consumer health.

Similarly scare tactics designed to further an anti-pesticide agenda also harm consumers, particularly when those scare tactics question farmers’ compliance with EPA safety regulations.   Despite universal recognition that Americans do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, there has been an effort to create lists of “dirty” produce items. Research confirms that consumers turn against all fruits and vegetables when confronted with messages that certain ones are “dirty.” What is worse, the advice causing consumers to avoid nutritious food is meritless. Getting lost in the rhetoric behind these lists is the science concerning the safety of fruits and vegetables. 

Recently, the Alliance for Food and Farming, a group that represents farmers of both organic and conventionally grown produce, gathered a panel of experts to examine these “dirty” lists. This panel, which included scientists from across the United States with expertise in toxicology, nutrition, and risk assessment, determined that there is no scientific evidence that the residue levels found pose any risk.  The full report can be found at www.safefruitsandveggies.com.

In fact, the government data misused to create these lists actually confirms the safety of produce. Based upon a separate toxicological analysis commissioned by the Alliance, a child could consume hundreds to thousands of servings of a fruit or vegetable in one day and still not have any health effects from pesticide residues. It is not concern about health that motivates these reports so this information never accompanies the broad recommendation to avoid the listed fruits and vegetables. 

Family farms and consumers, the supposed beneficiaries, will be the losers if these agendas find their way into policy. Our food choices will narrow and our diets will suffer. While agriculture policy often devolves to sound bites based on concepts of big versus small and good versus bad, the reality in the marketplace – and in science — is far more complicated.

Bryan Silbermann is the president and CEO of the Produce Marketing Association.