Posts Tagged: produce

Shoppers link fruit & veggies to health, but don't buy more

While 77 percent of moms associate fruits and vegetables with good health, purchase intent remains flat at 45 percent, according  the Produce for Better Health Foundation’s annual survey of mothers with children age 10 and under,.reported Mike Hornick in The Packer.

Roberta Cook, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics at the UC Davis, participated in the foundation's annual meeting. she attributed the discrepancy to promotion of specific types of produce. 

“One of the problems in our industry is a decline in generic promotion,” she said. “As grower-shippers become larger, they have wanted to take dollars spent on generic marketing internal. They feel they can use it better within their company.

“But that’s not really what the results show us. The mandated programs are trying to expand the total pie,” Cook said. “Because they bring greater dollars together than an individual company can, they can invest in understanding consumers.”

Colorado cantaloupe listeria outbreak affects California growers

The Colorado farm linked to a deadly listeria outbreak last fall is 1,300 miles away, but the tragedy changed a way of life in Mendota, Calif., the Central Valley farm town that proudly calls itself the Cantaloupe Center of the World, said an article in the Los Angeles Times by Diana Marcum.

This would normally be the season when farmers plan the summer crop that in good years is valued at nearly $200 million, according to the California Cantaloupe Advisory Board. Instead, they are cutting acreage and scrambling for ways to reassure a nervous public that cantaloupes are safe to eat.

This month the UC Center for Produce Safety will host a closed-door symposium in San Diego for cantaloupe growers, shippers, agricultural researchers, government regulators and others to create guidelines for best growing practices.

"The main question will be, 'What are the gaps in our knowledge?'" said Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, executive director of the UC Davis-based center. "Do we need to do research or is it a matter of the cantaloupe industry implementing and enforcing best practices?"

UCCE director in Tulare County takes Kings County reins
Lewis Griswald, Fresno Bee News Blog

Tulare County UC Cooperative Extension Director Jim Sullins will also be director of the Kings County UCCE office. Longtime Kings County UCCE director and 4-H youth advisor Peggy Gregory retired at the end of the year. She served 37 years with the University, including 20 in Kings County.

Grape growers fend off thieves, pests
Fresno Business Journal

Pests and thieves can cost grape growers a great deal of money and headaches. That’s why the two issues were addressed along with other important topics at the UC Cooperative Extension San Joaquin Valley Grape Symposium held Wednesday in Easton.

UCCE viticulture farm advisor Stephen Vasquez gave an update on glassy-winged sharpshooters and Pierce's disease. He said that recent catches of sharpshooters are concerning since they have been found near a major riparian corridor that has had a historically low level of Pierce’s disease.

Center for Produce Safety awards $2.8 million

The Center for Produce Safety at UC Davis announced 17 awards to researchers around the country for projects designed to mitigate food safety risks associated with growing and harvesting fresh produce, according to a press release issued by the organization.

CPS executive director Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli announced the awards yesterday at the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association’s annual convention in Naples, Fla. News of the $2.8 million disbursement was picked up by The Packer.

Six of the 17 projects are led by UC scientists. They are:

• Amphibians and reptiles as potential reservoirs of foodborne pathogens and risk reduction to protect fresh produce. Michele Jay-Russell, UC Davis. $142,523
  
  
• E. coli survival on contaminated crop residue. Steven Koike, UC Cooperative Extension. $118,000
  
  
• Pre-harvest environment influence on salmonella and its impact on increased survival capability. Linda Harris, UC Davis. $96,935
  
  
• Developing buffer zone distances between sheep grazing operations and vegetable crops to maximize food safety risks. Bruce Hoar, UC Davis. $83,000
  
  
• Risk assessment of salmonella preharvest internalization due to irrigation water quality standards for melons and cucurbits. Trevor Suslow, UC Davis. $48,747
  
  
• Imaging to evaluate potential infusion of pathogens during vacuum cooling of lettuce leaves and real-time dynamics of microbes on leaf tissues as a function of moisture content. Nitin Nitin, UC Davis. $45,008

CPS was established at UC Davis by a public and private partnership. It funds original research, maintains an online database of global produce safety research and is developing industry training and outreach programs.

"We are pleased with both the quality and the scope of the selected projects," said Bob Whitiker, chair of the CPS technical committee. "These projects go to the heart of the critical food safety questions faced daily by growers and processors in our industry, and will provide them with real-world risk management tools."

Research funding aims to minimize the risk of produce contamination.

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