Taking Control

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

By David Eddy
Senior Western Editor

AS nearly every grower knows all too well when it comes to food safety, there’s so much a grower can’t 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 what 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 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 that is most overlooked by growers, is worker hygiene. Providing workers with sanitary bathroom facilities, and making sure they know how to properly use them, would go a long way to minimizing food contamination. “It’s one of the easiest things to fix, and one of the most affordable,” she says. “Redoing a packingline 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, the Cornell University Extension educator 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., each 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 viewed it in those terms, Bihn thinks growers would be more likely to take all practical steps necessary to produce fresh fruits and vegetables that are 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.”

The 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 all growers. “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. (See Web Extra for the GAPs manual “Food Safety Begins on the Farm — A Grower’s Guide,” as well as other materials.)

Direct comments or questions about this article to deddy@meistermedia.com