Salad season shouldn’t come with a warning label | Opinion

Mark Law is CEO of Rosemont Market & Bakery.

Summer is in full swing and the flavors of Maine are popping off. Farm stands are chock-full of corn, berries, tomatoes, greens and assorted vegetables.

I recently created several delightful salads made entirely from Maine-grown produce. Marinated heirloom tomatoes from Hallbrook Farm, grilled zucchini and summer squash from Stonecypher Farm, charred corn from Belanger Farm, and Olivia’s Garden cucumbers piled on top of freshly picked lettuces from Goranson and Bumbleroot farms.

I didn’t think of Cyclospora once.

I don’t mean to diminish the significance of another dangerous contamination from our industrial food system. It is scary and has sickened thousands, but it is an extremely unfortunate, yet unnecessary risk that Americans are expected to accept.

Lettuce most frequently shows up as the culprit, but other fresh produce and meat are also at risk. There’s the usual finger pointing, some interesting political donations, a walked-back potential false positive and ongoing illnesses without much accountability or action, leaving us unnerved and drowning in ambiguity.

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According to Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, “Lettuce producers have known about the Cyclospora hazard for more than a decade. They have not acted, and neither has the government.”

This is a solvable problem, yet our neighbors remain isolated, having to navigate a terrifying unknown while trying to guess what is safe to feed their families.

We may not be able to eliminate these outbreaks, but there needs to be decisive action to learn the cause, and steps taken to prevent repeated contamination. Is it too much to expect a base level of accountability and updated, enforced compliance to ensure consistently safe large-scale food production?

My sense is that with unchecked corporations that have little interest in policing themselves, a lack of consequences and minimal government regulation, we should most likely expect these dangers to continue, if not proliferate.

This is a tasty opportunity to resist with our forks and turn our frayed attention to food grown on a smaller scale in the areas where we live. While potential contamination cannot be entirely eliminated, regional farms, owned mostly by families rather than large corporations, tend to be more aware of and careful with inputs they add to their land.

People who live on the land are typically cognizant of any impact on their farm, its products and the surrounding environment. Farmers are not eager to diminish the quality of their soil since they typically live on the same land, and it is what sustains them. Smaller farms can react quickly, creating a higher level of traceability, and truth be told, more accountability to address any issues that may affect the quality of the food produced and people consuming it.

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Summer is the time when we flock to farm stands and local markets as we seek out the limited flavors of the season. It reinforces that locally grown foods taste better. But small food producers need our support year-round. They also need a modicum of government involvement to provide Americans with safer, better-quality options and an alternative to the industrial-scale agriculture that dominates our food system and occasionally sickens us.

Currently, small farmers are forced to incur significant costs, risks and complicated logistics severely limiting their ability to compete and survive. Could we not use a fraction of the behemoth farm bill to test the impact of targeted subsidies, greater access to capital and direct investment in a regional food economy. Ahem, New England is a fantastic option.

Is it necessary, or even advisable, to predominantly ship fragile produce, eggs and meat across the country year-round? Reasonable investments in processing hubs, regional distribution networks and easier access to affordable loans would allow smaller farms to prosper, creating healthy competition, a more vibrant, resilient and safer food economy and lower prices.

These investments may very well determine how many farms remain in agriculture. They will also create jobs, keep money in the communities where it’s earned and provide a safer alternative to having so much of our food grown on an industrial scale.

On the 250th anniversary of our great nation, is it too much to ask for American families to enjoy a seasonal salad without fear of getting sick?

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