GAPs Food Safety In Texas

With the California spinach outbreak in September of 2006, the California leafy greens industry has initiated a Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) requirement for the industry to regain consumer confidence in leafy greens.  While GAPs practices have existed for years, this document has added documentation and thresholds (metrics) for water quality, documentation/land metrics for animal encroachment (cattle, hogs, goats, sheep, and deer) and manure based amendments and sprays.  The outbreak of Salmonella sp. on peppers in 2008 continued to keep food safety concerns on the forefront of Texas production and the Texas retail vegetable industry since the source of the outbreak originated in Mexico but the products were distributed by a produce company in South Texas. Several factors may contribute to microbial contamination of produce but water quality of irrigation water is often blamed for these outbreaks as it was in the pepper outbreak in 2008. Producers practicing Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) address these concerns at the farm level thereby decreasing these risks.  Currently, there are very few producers that are GAPs certified in Texas.  Part of being certified is that the water quality of the irrigation water is acceptable and documented.  Testing water with a private lab is quite costly ($30 per sample) and collection of the water samples is largely time consuming in terms of coordination of when the produce crops were being irrigated.  This water quality test is also different from what producers and county extension agents are accustomed when it comes to the procedure for collecting samples and sending promptly for the 24 hour testing requirements. In 2009 and 2010, irrigation water quality data was collected from different sources across Texas.  Irrigation water quality data was collected from 90 sites using various water sources to include surface and well water.  Most (85 out of 90 or 94.4%) of the irrigation water samples from sources in South Texas are adequate for furrow or sprinkler irrigation in vegetable crops under the guidelines for generic E. coli of the California Leafy Greens GAPs Agreement.  This database which will be located in the National GAPs Program website (www.gaps.cornell.edu/) will encourage more vegetable producers in South Texas to become GAPs certified since the results show no problem with the water quality whether surface or well.  These irrigation water collection demonstrations have increased the knowledge of producers and county extension agents in irrigation water quality testing and collection.