Rules abound and spot checks are common — but for his competitors, maybe not

Carly Weeks, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Wednesday, August 08, 2007Second of Three PartsSpecial Report - From Farm to Table: How Safe Is Your Food?Andy Terauds runs his 100-acre farm at Carp like the captain of a ship. Neat rows with dozens of varieties of lettuce, strawberries, onions and nearly 60 other crops are planted and picked by hand. Irrigation tubes connected to a small pond run through fields of pumpkins and squash insulated by sheets of clear plastic to provide the optimal growing temperature.None of his four staff members is permitted to work in the field if they are feeling sick. Under Canadian industry rules, Mr. Terauds can’t enter his greenhouse with his glasses or pens in his front shirt pocket. He also has to remove his watch, which is considered a safety hazard because the glass face could break and fall onto his tomatoes.Five government inspectors have visited his farm on the outskirts of Ottawa so far this year, including one unannounced inspection to test his broccoli field for bugs that are invading the area.”The rules are ridiculous. They’re extremely strict to the point of ridiculous,” said Mr. Terauds, who has been selling fresh produce for 26 years.Yet, only a small fraction of the billions worth of fruits and vegetables that are imported into Canada every year from other countries, including those that may have lower safety standards, are ever inspected by the government — creating a double standard that frustrates Canadian producers and may put consumers at risk.With news of tainted food, counterfeit products and bacteria-laden produce dominating the headlines in recent months, many Canadian farmers say they’re fed up with having to play by the government’s strict rules while foreign producers are allowed to dump cheap, low-quality — and sometimes, even dangerous — goods on the Canadian market without being inspected or having to prove their operations are safe.”I think the aspect of it that is unfair is they rely on the other government and other people that are importing food into Canada to comply with universal safety requirements. Are they doing it? Nobody knows. Obviously, some groups aren’t. The Chinese come to mind right away,” Mr. Terauds said.Canada’s farming industry says it doesn’t make sense that domestic growers must comply with strict standards and safety regulations while the bulk of food imports from countries that may have inferior standards or are more likely to have unhygienic growing practices is never inspected.”The perspective that our members take is that the food safety standards that are demanded of Canadian suppliers should apply equally to any products coming into Canada,” said Heather Gale, food safety co-ordinator at the Canadian Horticultural Council.Grocery stores in Canada depend heavily on the federal government to ensure products coming into the country are safe.”If it’s coming from offshore, we have to rely on the science-based standards of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the work they do,” said John Scott, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers. “The retailer themselves can’t certify that a product coming in from wherever is safe.”But the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, responsible for regulating food imports, says it is struggling to handle the onslaught of foreign products. The increasing presence of foreign products has created enormous new challenges in making sure food is safe — and dealing with problems once they arise.”The proportion is different,” said Ren Cardinal, acting national manager for the CFIA’s fresh fruit and vegetable program. “If a small farm has problems in terms of their food safety system, the farm will call it an outbreak but it will be localized and may go unnoticed as opposed to a big farm that produces 10 times as much, if not 20 times as much produce as the small farms and will contaminate more people.”The CFIA rarely sends anyone to check operations in foreign countries to see if they’re safe and clean, except when there is a problem or outbreak of food-borne illness.Another reality is that Canada imports food from countries that may have less stringent standards and regulations, which increases the risk to the public.”You have imported produce all over the place,” Mr. Cardinal said. “Some developed countries may not have the same hygiene system in place that we do have. These are the contributing factors.”The CFIA doesn’t have enough resources to inspect a majority of products before they hit the grocery store, however. Instead, they use a risk-based system and apply scrutiny to food based on its level of risk. For instance, meat is considered to be high risk. Most fresh produce, such as sweet peppers, is considered low risk, which means less than 10 per cent of shipments face government inspections.”We can’t inspect everything,” Mr. Cardinal said. “It’s going to take an army. We have about one million entries of fresh produce (every day).”Recent examples of food scares involving imported spinach tainted with E. coli, contaminated carrot juice and pet food that contained a poisonous chemical have convinced some that Canada should place a higher level of scrutiny on foreign food products.”The Canadian government’s got their blinders on,” Mr. Terauds said. “They probably don’t have the manpower, but why should the Canadian farmers be faced with all these rules and the imported stuff not?”Canadian farmers say the best way consumers can ensure they’re eating safe food is to purchase it directly from the grower, rather than buying products from an industrial farm where the sheer size and scope of operations makes it difficult to catch problems with the food supply.”The safest food is the stuff that’s local because the stuff that’s local is picked by myself or someone else or my staff. I know exactly who they are. I know if they’re sick that morning. I know if they’re going to wash their hands after they’ve gone to the washroom and all those nice other things,” Mr. Terauds said. “If you’ve got 250 people working for you like a lot of these big places do, how do you know who’s doing what? Are you going to follow everyone into the can? You can’t do it.”