Taking Control - March 2007

Worker hygiene is often overlooked, but it’s critical to help prevent contamination.

By David Eddy
Senior Western Editor

WHEN it comes to food safety, there’s a lot that’s out of your control. Contamination can come from so many unpredictable sources, it can be a frustrating issue to tackle. That’s why, says the coordinator of the National Good Agricultural Practices Program, growers need to focus on the things they have power over. “There’s always a risk when you’re growing fresh fruits and vegetables because they’re [generally] grown outside in an environment that’s not totally controlled,” says Cornell University extension educator Betsy Bihn. “But if there’s something you can control, do it. It sounds simple, but do the thing you can do.”
In Bihn’s experience, the area of food safety that is within a grower’s control, but is most overlooked by growers, is worker hygiene. Providing workers with sanitary bathroom facilities, and making sure they know how to properly use them, will go a long way toward minimizing food contamination. “It’s one of the easiest things to fix, and one of the most affordable,” she says. “Redoing a packing line to stainless steel — now that’s expensive. But installing a port-a-potty? No.”
Part of the reason worker hygiene is often ignored has to do with human nature, says Bihn. Like most people, growers don’t like to dwell on the subject of bathroom habits, much less discuss them. But after extensive talks with growers in various locations across the country, she believes the problem goes even deeper.

Change Your Mindset
Most growers view their mission in terms of producing a good-quality, abundant crop. From preparing the ground, through all the cultural practices of fertilizing, irrigating, etc., every step is part of a process that results in a crop. “They view it as a crop, not necessarily a food product,” says Bihn. “And they should really take it even further, because they are producing a ready-to-eat food product.”
If they view it in those terms, Bihn thinks growers would be more likely to take all practical steps necessary to produce fresh fruits and vegetables that would be as safe as possible. Because when you really think about it, many times there’s just one omitted hand-washing step between a product and a foodborne illness. “For instance, strawberries are field-packed right into the clamshell [container] and out to the consumer,” she says. “Sometimes there’s only one person who touches it before it gets to the consumer’s mouth.”

Business Of Hygiene
In her role as GAPs coordinator, Bihn often talks to growers about worker hygiene, and is frequently met with resistance. “There is a disconnect, and it makes a certain amount of sense because growers aren’t health professionals,” she says. “But let’s look at it for what it is — a ready-to-eat food product. Good hand washing is critical and people are not born knowing how to properly wash their hands, so training is a must.”
While some growers will say they’re “not in the hygiene business,” as one grower expressed, Bihn emphasizes that it is critical to food safety. Viewed that way, all growers are in the business of good hygiene, because a food safety scare can affect the entire industry. “If one farm makes a big, fat mistake,” she says, “it not only affects that farm, but everyone else who grows that commodity.” And unlike other problems, such as having only limited sources of irrigation water, hygiene problems are relatively easy to solve. All it takes is a modest investment in facilities, and a good training program for workers.

	All For One
	Good training is indeed critical when dealing with food safety, says a counterpart of Betsy Bihn’s on the West Coast. University of California-Davis postharvest expert Trevor Suslow, however, has a slightly different outlook on the issue. Where Bihn deals primarily with small- and medium-size growers who have roadside and U-pick components, many California farms are large wholesale operations. But the goal of attaining a good food safety record is much the same, as Suslow says growers need to have the mindset that sanitation is absolutely critical. “You need to educate your staff as much as possible,” he says. “Build food safety into your business plan.” Suslow says that many of the growers he deals with are well aware of the need for attention to food safety, especially in the wake of the well-publicized problems involving growers in both the Salinas and San Joaquin Valley areas. However, unless that emphasis is communicated to all the workers in the organization, it won’t be effective. “Sometimes the people who are in a position to observe problems don’t have the ability to recognize it as a problem, or aren’t aware of the magnitude of the consequences,” he says. When it comes to food safety, it’s often not the every-day occurrences that can lead to an outbreak, says Suslow, but something unusual. In that case, upper management may not be aware of what’s going on, pointing out the need for a total organizational effort. “Just make sure that top to bottom, people know of the importance of it and their role in food safety management,” he says. Suslow suggests that a reward system could open up workers’ eyes. “Give incentives for catching things and coming up with solutions, as is often done for an injury-free workplace.”

E-mail questions or comments about this article to deddy@meistermedia.com