Re: North America tomato industry reeling: growers

On Jun 11, 8:32 am, CanopyCo <Junk74...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 10, 6:08 pm, Too_Many_Tools <too_many_to...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





I say to this...tough sh*t.

When an industry...any industy....ignores quality control they risk
this type of disaster.

This a direct result of the Bush pro business Administration and the
lobbyists.

Pay now or pay much more latter.

TMT

North America tomato industry reeling: growers By Jane Sutton

Florida's tomato industry is in "complete collapse" and growers in
California and Mexico are having trouble selling their crops as U.S.
regulators hunt the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to certain
tomato varieties, growers said on Tuesday.

In Florida, the No. 1 U.S. tomato producer, $40 million worth of
tomatoes will rot unless the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quickly
traces the source of the outbreak and clears the state's produce, an
industry official said.

"We've had to stop packing, stop picking," said Reggie Brown,
executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.

"The stuff that should have been harvested over the weekend won't
survive more than another day or so. The stuff we have in storage is
getting riper every minute and at some point it will have to be
disposed of," Brown said.

The FDA warned U.S. consumers on Saturday that the outbreak was linked
to eating certain raw red plum, red Roma, and red round tomatoes, and
products containing those tomatoes.

Major restaurant and grocery chains stopped selling those varieties,
and some stopped selling all raw tomatoes entirely.

U.S. growers produced $1.28 billion worth of tomatoes last year,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Florida produces an annual crop valued at $500 million to $700
million, and supplies more than 90 percent of the nation's tomatoes
this time of year, Brown said.

The FDA has said that it is safe to eat cherry tomatoes, grape
tomatoes and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached but those
account for only a tiny portion of the industry.

The FDA has said it does not know where the contaminated tomatoes
originated. The infections have struck most often in New Mexico and
Texas.

The FDA has put California on the list of suppliers not linked to the
outbreak. But some supermarkets still rejected tomatoes from that
state, which is the No. 2 U.S. producer with $400 million in annual
sales.

"The reality is that the entire tomato industry is being impacted,"
said Ed Beckman, president of the California Tomato Farmers. "It
wasn't really clear that round and Romas from California are safe to
eat. That's part of the problem."

The FDA said there had been 167 reported cases as of Tuesday,
including at least 23 hospitalizations, related to the outbreak since
mid-April. The infections were caused by Salmonella Saintpaul, an
uncommon type of the bacteria.

Salmonella bacteria are frequently responsible for food-borne
illnesses. Symptoms generally appear within 12 to 72 hours after
eating infected food and include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and
abdominal pain.

With the tainted spinach scare of 2006 still fresh in their minds,
buyers and consumers were unwilling to take chances, growers said.
Three people died and more than 200 were sickened by eating spinach
contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

Mexican growers, who produce 84 percent of the tomatoes imported by
the United States, were also feeling the pain.

"U.S. consumers have started to reject orders that have already been
promised or sent and it is causing a lot of damage to producers," said
Mario Robles, who directs the investigation arm of the vegetable
association in the state of Sinaloa.

Mexico sends nearly 700,000 metric tons of tomatoes a year to the
United States in a business worth $900 million, according to a Mexican
vegetable exporters association.

Exports of Mexican agricultural products soared after the United
States, Canada and Mexico lifted all tariff barriers under the 1994
North American Free Trade Agreement.

But the benefits can easily be wiped out by a sanitary scare like the
one in 2000, when the FDA identified a strain of salmonella in Mexican
melons and banned their import.

That cut the $200 million annual export business down to around $3
million, said Robles, and Mexican growers fear the same could happen
to tomatoes.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Mica
Rosenberg in Mexico City; editing by Jim Marshall)

We need to be informed when our food supply is being poisoned.

I understand that it may happen from time to time, but that fact in no
way indicates that we should eat poisoned food.
We should be informed of what food is poisoned, where the food
poisoning was found, and what company supplied the food.
That way we can avoid the bad food and still get food without
affecting the entire industry.

If that is what is killing the tomato industry, then to bad for them.
If they are not telling us what brand and location is bad and
therefore panicking everyone about all brands, then the tomato
lobbyists should go after those responsible for not telling us
accurate information.

Either way, we should know when a part of our food supply is being
poisoned, even if it does affect the guy selling poison food.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree.

The industry does not want you to know where the food comes from.

If the consumer knows, they make informed decisions.

The industry can't have anything like that happening.

The other side of this is when a threat develops, consumers do what
they should...they boycott the product because they would rather be
safe than sorry.

The industry brought this on to themselves.

TMT
.

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