Potato commission offers grower aid for food safety changes

Washington could be first 100-percent certified state, director says

MOSES LAKE — When Columbia Basin potato growers begin to follow new guidelines Sunday, the state's potato commission will be on hand to offer support.

The United States Department of Agriculture program, Good Agriculture Practices, or GAP, is a food safety program ensuring crops are grown and protected in a way to ensure a safe food supply, Washington State Potato Commission Executive Director Chris Voigt said.

"There have been a lot of food scares recently, with spinach, lettuce and green onions," he said. "We want to make sure the public understands potatoes are not leafy green vegetables. Very few people ever eat a potato raw. Most of the potatoes they eat are cooked, whether they're a frozen French fry or a potato prepared at home. We're not the same risk as a lot of the leafy green vegetables."

The program includes a checklist of food safety plans, worker health and hygiene and farm management practices.

"It's pretty broad and encompassing," Voigt said.

Beginning July 1, the department is requiring potatoes sold to the federal government for school lunch programs, military use or institutional use to be GAP-certified.

"This is a common practice already with retailers," Voigt said. "If they're not using the USDA program, they're utilizing someone else, so to sell to grocery stores, you already have to have some type of food certification standard in place. But this is the first time the federal government is saying 'You've got to have something,' for us to sell to the federal government."

Because all processors sell to the federal government, Voigt said, they are requiring their growers be certified under the GAP program.

The commission began efforts in March to help growers become certified.

"But it's very complicated," Voigt said. "The requirements the USDA is requiring, for the most part the growers are doing them. But what's difficult for the growers is now you have to document everything. Growers have been doing it on their own, but now they have to prove they're doing it."

The commission created a notebook, which contains information on how growers can comply, breaking down each question asked by the USDA and explaining what documentation growers must provide.

The notebook also includes a standard operating procedure for growers to either accept or amend to suit their operations and a training video for growers' employees.

The programs are provided in English and Spanish.

"(The) USDA is still re-evaluating their program and made that commitment to make sure it fits the industry, so there could be changes made," commission Director of Trade Matt Harris said. "What's really great about this book the commission has put together is we can change with it, we can re-evaluate our own product we've developed for growers and give them updates to the program."

The commission mailed the notebooks Monday afternoon to every grower in the state.

The Washington State Potato Commission offers free training to meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture Good Agriculture Practices certification Wednesday at the Reichert's Showhouse theater, located at 130 N. Broadway Ave., in Othello. Training is open to the public and begins at 9 a.m. A second training course is scheduled to take place in Mount Vernon in July.

"Actually, we are so far ahead of the other states on this," Voigt said. "Every other state is kind of scrambling to play catch-up and they are begging for a copy of this notebook, essentially, so they can use it with their growers. We think by this harvest season, we'll probably have 100 percent of our growers GAP certified, and we'll probably be the only state that can say that."