Pablito .... 

NOT SO HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
Well it’s been almost a year since an outbreak of E. Coli rocketed spinach and salad greens into the national spotlight, and there’s another contamination.  This time the product in question was sent to Canada, but the details of this case are revealing.  The mixed lettuce in Dole’s bagged and washed salad that has been found to be contaminated with E. Coli came from farms in three different states; Colorado and Ohio as well as California, and was packaged in Ohio.  This new case reveals that the problem is not going to be solved by the Marketing Agreement adopted last year among California leafy greens handlers.

 Leafy greens, just like most other vegetables eaten in the U.S., are grown in multiple states and countries.  They travel long distances before and after they are processed, and they are commingled during processing.  These are issues that the large packers who dominate the industry succeeded in avoiding when they adopted last year’s Marketing Agreement.  This is a voluntary set of standards, but almost 100% of leafy greens packers in California have adopted it.  Most large wholesalers and retailers will no longer buy leafy greens unless they are packed in accordance.  Not surprisingly, the agreement puts much of the burden for food safety on the growers.  Produce packers since the days of John Steinbeck have a well-earned reputation for insulating themselves from the risks of farming and are earning a consistent profit, even if it means the farmers growing their crops go bankrupt.  Their response to the potential affect of food safety scares on their business has followed the same model.

 Farmers in the greens-growing region of the Central Coast must now submit to food safety inspections before they can sell their crops to the packers.  As a result, many farmers have gone to extremes to prevent contamination of their crops, especially by wildlife.  They have installed fencing and removed wildlife habitat on their property, causing the Resource Conservation District in the area to seriously consider a lawsuit against the Marketing Board on environmental grounds.

 The RCD and other environmental agencies are concerned that the rules created by the Marketing Agreement have no basis in science.  For example, the current Marketing Agreement includes head lettuce, cabbage and bunched greens such as kale and chard as potential vectors for E. Coli.  Yet  new data out from the FDA shows that 98% of E. Coli illnesses have resulted from processed salad greens packed in sealed bags.

 These concerns have not stopped the state-approved body that created the Marketing Agreement from moving forward with its plans for a Marketing Order — a federally enforced set of rules for all growers of a certain commodity — for leafy greens.  Once the Marketing Order is adopted, Terra Firma Farm and numerous other small growers who market their leafy greens directly through CSAs, farmers markets, and other methods will be required to abide by its rules.  Our farm, as well as many others, will have difficulty meeting these standards.  The biggest problem will be our exposure to wildlife, especially migratory birds.  We are facing the real threat of being in violation of federal law because our farm provides habitat for wild animals.

 The USDA is trying to distance itself from the adoption of a Marketing Order, which it would be required to enforce.  Numerous environmental groups and several government agencies have suggested that they will sue the USDA if the order is adopted.

 Meanwhile, many small growers have a big problem with the industry’s refusal to address what we see as the real problems with pre-washed salad greens:  the commingling of products from different farms, the vacuum packed bags they use (which encourage the development of bacteria), and the marketing of these products as having a shelf life of a week or more.  A food-borne illness originating at a farm like ours is likely to be quickly identified and contained, and would be limited to a very small population.

 The Community Alliance with Family Farmers is currently organizing a letter writing campaign that we support.  At the current time, there has been little feedback in this process from the general public, and we are hoping to generate thousands of letters in support of small growers like Terra Firma.  We have posted the letter on our website and we ask you to read it.  If you agree with it, please print, sign, and send it back to CAFF so they can deliver it to the Marketing Board at their next meeting.

IN YOUR BOXES
Last Wednesday afternoon, while it was sunny and windy in the Bay Area, a Midwest-style summer storm blew through the Sacramento Valley, bringing downpours, lightning, thunder, and hail.  Most areas escaped with just a few tenths of inch of precipitation, but our farm fields got dumped on.  At one ranch, we received almost three inches of rain, at the second, an inch and a half.  Roads and fields flooded.  The storm basically shut down the farm for three days.  Because of the timing, though, it had almost no impact on last week’s boxes.  And because several days have now passed, it will have little impact on this week’s boxes, with a few exceptions:

Green Beans in today’s boxes may not be as clean as they normally are.  The heavy rain and hail pummeled the plants, smashing them to the ground and splashing mud up onto the beans.  While we are not picking any beans that were sitting in the mud, we do recommend that you soak and rinse your beans before eating to remove any silt that may have splashed up onto them.

Tomatoes in today’s boxes may be prone to splitting open once you get them home.  They absorbed a lot of water in a short period of time, and although we were careful to wait four days before harvesting them again, some of them may still split open.  These are fine to use as long as they don’t sit for long before being eaten.

Basil was pounded by hail and wind, which caused many of the brittle stems to break in half.  On the stems that did not break, some of the leaves were bruised by the hail, causing a slight discoloration.  Basil always has a short shelf life; this week’s will be even more delicate.  I recommend using it within a day or two.
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Thanks,
    Pablito
 

Please make sure to include your account name, the one on the sign off sheet & on the box, in every correspondance to Valerie

Recipes............................

CSA membership fees ~payment due day is first of month.~~ Quarterly discounts are given for any 3 month period only if paid in advance.
They are given as an extra credit when the payment is applied, you won't see your monthly rate change.

For mid-month changes,  Up/downgrades are $5 per week per increment.  Small to large is $10.

Vacations & Billing Inquiries
We need seven days notice before a vacation hold or other change of service.
Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800, or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com.  Include your account name in full (what's on the sign off sheet).

Account Balance Inquiries The account sheet is hiding under the sign off sheet each week with your account balance on it.  Mid month I've been e-mailing statments, so if you're not getting it send me an e-mail requesting to be added to the list. To be able to read the statements you need to be logged in as an administrator on a PC, and virus programs may corrupt the file. Some Mac operating systems do allow the file to be viewed.  We can't resend them, and it wouldn't work any better the second time anyway.

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com

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