Category: Produce Blueprints

Recently, I was commiserating with a longtime industry leader about the state of produce in North America. We concurred that we’ve seen many changes—many good, and others not so good, and we agreed there will be several more changes coming down the pike.

Teresa Thorne, executive director of the Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF) says that the Dirty Dozen is pernicious.

American consumers' produce consumption levels play a part in the pesticide residue debate.

The Environmental Working Group and similar groups base their arguments on the premise that EPA standards aren’t adequate to ensure safe levels of public pesticide consumption.

According to the FDA’s 2019 report for its Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program, released in November 2021, “98.7 percent of domestic and 89.1 percent of import foods were compliant with federal standards. No pesticide chemical residues were found in 42.4 percent of the domestic and 49.4 percent of the import samples.”

Behind the Dirty Dozen pesticide residue discussion is a much larger issue of risk- versus hazard-based assessments of food safety.

The “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce,” which, according to the the EWG website, “ranks the pesticide contamination of 46 popular fruits and vegetables,” has frustrated the produce industry for decades.

A zero-trust system, as well as other mitigation measures, can also lower cyber-insurance premiums.

There are many ways to prevent cybercrime—including tools, resources, best practices, and policies—that will help mitigate risks, experts point out.

Though cybercrime isn’t always in the news, it’s a significant problem and getting worse.