Haleiwa Farmers’ Market gets a taste of state bureaucracy

Published on April 18, 2012 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Somebody please explain to me what I’m missing here. The State of Hawaii is telling the owners of the Haleiwa Farmers Market that they will have to move because they’re violating a state zoning law that prohibits vending from highways.

Have you ever visited this farmers’ market? I have, a number of times. I recall coming upon it about three years ago when it was in its infancy — a few vendors and a smattering of customers. We were back about a month ago, telling our out-of-state visitors it was something they should not miss on their tour of Oahu’s North Shore. They agreed, after spending about an hour chatting with some of the several dozen farmers and buying products to take back to Virginia.

I was delighted to see how the market had grown and how many people — an estimated 2,500 — visit it each Sunday. I explained that farmers’ markets were becoming wildly popular in Hawaii and that they were one thing that nobody could possibly find fault with.

I was wrong. I had underestimated our government’s ability to find wrong solutions to problems that do not exist.

To find the Haleiwa Farmers’ Market, drive through downtown Haleiwa on a Sunday morning to the north edge of town. Instead of rounding the curve to get back on the Joseph P. Leong Bypass, proceed straight ahead to a small piece of asphalt that used to be a highway. You not only have arrived at the farmers’ market, you have found the issue that has upset state officials.

The stretch where the asphalt still sits and the farmers’ market holds court on Sundays used to be a road. It stopped being a road when the bypass opened.

That was in 1993. Continue reading ‘Haleiwa Farmers’ Market gets a taste of state bureaucracy’

Allotment thieves caught after vegetable identity parade

Published on February 4, 2012 in Gardening, General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Police caught a gang of allotment thieves after holding a bizarre identity parade – of stolen VEGETABLES.

Lawrence Miller, 44, and Steven Randall, 46, were caught carrying a bag of stolen fruit and veg at allotments in Brampton, Cambs.

To get evidence against the duo police lined up the food on the roadside and asked allotment holders to identify their stolen vegetables.

They instantly spotted their crops, including a marrow with a distinctive stripe, rhubarb, leeks and cabbages.

The two offenders were left looking red-faced as beetroot when they were ordered to pay £20 of compensation and £85 costs at Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court.

Miller and Randall, who were both on benefits, were said to be living “in extreme poverty” and stole the vegetables to feed their families.

Both men were granted a conditional discharge.

Prosecutor Penny Cannon said police spotted them run across the road into the allotment and when they stopped and searched them found stolen produce.

She said: “Police carried out a unique investigation by photographing the fruit and vegetables and then putting them on the verge, asking people if they could recognise or identify the vegetables.”

One of the plots had also been damaged on the same night, the court heard, Continue reading ‘Allotment thieves caught after vegetable identity parade’

Colorado farmers worry that Listeria outbreak has ruined prime selling season

Published on September 18, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

DENVER — A multistate Listeria outbreak linked to a Colorado farm has the state’s melon farmers worried that their prime selling season has been ruined.

In Rocky Ford, farmer Greg Smith this week laid off his lone farm stand employee because he said customers all but vanished when news of the outbreak spread.

The outbreak has killed as many as four people. Colorado officials said Friday the contaminated melons were whole fruit from a Jensen Farms in the Rocky Ford region and have been recalled.

Angry at reporters and camera crews reporting on the tainted melons, Smith said, “You’ve basically put a .30-caliber bullet between our eyes.”

Mike Bartolo, a Rocky Ford-based vegetable crops specialist for Colorado State University, has been fielding questions from the two dozen or so farmers who make a living selling Rocky Ford cantaloupes. He said the Listeria outbreak is a major blow to the farmers, but it would have been worse if it occurred a few weeks ago.

“If this thing had happened at the beginning of the season, instead of the end, it would have been just devastating,” Bartolo said. “As it is, I think it’s too soon to know what will happen next year.”

Bartolo said the “Rocky Ford cantaloupes” name has no legal protection, such as the strict legal definition of a Vidalia onion, to prevent farmers outside the region from using the name. In fact, he said, Rocky Ford was a major melon-seed producer from the 1900s to 1940s, selling melon seeds nationwide under the name “Rocky Ford” or “Rocky Sweets,” so there may be cantaloupes from far away sold under the name.

Colorado Chief Medical Officer Chris Urbina said he understands the anger of other farmers who feel tarnished by the outbreak. Continue reading ‘Colorado farmers worry that Listeria outbreak has ruined prime selling season’

Hawaii farm owners face human trafficking trial

Published on July 25, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Two brothers who run one of Hawaii’s largest vegetable farms are going to trial this week on federal charges they illegally shipped 44 workers from Thailand, housed them in dirty metal containers and forced them to work for little pay.

Alec and Mike Sou of Aloun Farms each face up to 20 years in prison without parole if found guilty after they backed out of a plea deal last September that came with a five-year maximum sentence. The trial opens with jury selection Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors claim the Sou brothers gamed the United States’ guest-worker visa system in a way that economically trapped the rural north Thailand laborers on the 3,000-acre Oahu farm, which grows a variety of foods including lettuce, apples, bananas, parsley, watermelon and pumpkin year-round in Hawaii’s mild climate. Continue reading ‘Hawaii farm owners face human trafficking trial’

Aloun Farm owners deny threats

Published on July 20, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

The sentencing hearing for the owners of Aloun Farms on forced-labor charges will continue in September because brothers Alec and Mike Sou refused to admit to committing acts to which they had pleaded guilty in January.

Alec Souphone Sou, president and general manager of the Ewa farm, is facing 46 to 57 months in prison for conspiring to commit forced labor in connection with the importation of 44 farmworkers from Thailand in 2004, according to federal sentencing guidelines.

Mike Mankone Sou, vice president and operations manager, is facing 41 to 51 months in prison for the same crime.

The sentencing guidelines are based on a number of factors, including the seriousness of the crime and a defendant’s actions and criminal history. Alec Sou has a higher prison range because he has prior DUI convictions. Continue reading ‘Aloun Farm owners deny threats’

Dozens write to support Aloun leaders

Published on July 19, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Two former governors and community leaders have submitted letters to a federal judge in support of two brothers facing sentencing today for employing Thai immigrants under forced labor conditions in 2004 and 2005 at the well-known Aloun Farms.

John Waihee and Ben Cayetano, former Land Board Chairman William Paty, Hawaii Foodbank President Richard Grimm and dozens of others sent letters to U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway on behalf of Alec and Mike Sou, who hope to avoid a prison term.

Aloun Farms, a major agricultural business in the state, produces Asian vegetables and other crops on about 3,000 acres in the Kapolei area.

Alec Sou, president and general manager, and Mike Sou, vice president and operations manager, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge after they helped bring in 44 laborers from Thailand in 2003. They admitted they told workers they would be sent back to Thailand if they were disobedient or if they tried to leave.

Federal prosecutors and lawyers for 22 of the workers contend that the immigrants were mistreated and forced to lived in substandard conditions, but the Sous’ lawyers and supporters say the brothers are being unfairly characterized and that their farm operation will suffer if they are sent to prison. Continue reading ‘Dozens write to support Aloun leaders’

Celery root may be daunting, but it can rewarding to have in your garden

Published on July 14, 2011 in Gardening, General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Discover celery root in a produce bin and it will not be love at first sight. What, you ponder, would anyone do with these bumpy beige orbs, from which someone has removed the nice green tops?

Pull one out of the ground and you’ll be even more daunted, faced with a tangle of gnarly roots. But persevere. Chop off those tentacles with a large knife or cleaver, and then keep chopping until all the bumps and soil-choked crevices are gone. By now the thing might be half its original weight and size. Scrub it some more, then chop it up, boil it and puree it with a little cream. Then you will see why my friend C.R. Lawn of Fedco Seeds calls it “the frog prince of vegetables.” Imagine a pile of very smooth mashed potatoes with the flavors of celery and parsley and a bit of sweetness — so rich and elegant it doesn’t need butter.

Celery root is a celery plant that’s been bred not for succulent, crunchy stalks, but for its root or, more accurately, a tuberlike enlarged stem base. (Its top growth can be used to season a soup but is not tender enough for nibbling.) Other names for it include celeriac, turnip-rooted celery and knob celery. In Europe, where it is more popular and better known than stem celery, it’s often grated or julienned and used raw in a salad, absorbing the dressing like a sponge. Continue reading ‘Celery root may be daunting, but it can rewarding to have in your garden’

E. coli outbreaks linked to Egypt

Published on June 30, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

E. coli outbreaks in Germany and France could have come from seeds sourced in Egypt, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said.

A report said there was still “much uncertainty”, but fenugreek seeds imported in 2009 and 2010 “had been implicated in both outbreaks”.

More than 4,000 people were infected during the German outbreak, 48 died.

Investigators traced the source back to a bean sprout farm in Bienenbuettel, Lower Saxony.

The outbreak in Bordeaux affected 15 people and was linked to seeds sold by a firm in the UK – Thompson and Morgan, although it said there was no evidence of a link.
Linked

Both outbreaks involved the rare strain of E. coli known as O104:H4.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the strain was so rare in humans the outbreaks were unlikely to have been isolated incidents and both were linked to eating sprouting seeds.

Further investigations have been trying to determine if the source of the infection was contamination at the sites, or if they had been supplied with contaminated seeds. Continue reading ‘E. coli outbreaks linked to Egypt’

British seed firm ‘linked to French E. coli outbreak’

Published on June 26, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Officials are investigating a possible link between seeds sold by a UK firm and an E. coli outbreak in France.

News agency AFP said 10 people have been affected by E. coli in Bordeaux.

It is thought a number of them had eaten rocket and mustard vegetable sprouts, believed to have been grown from seeds sold by Thompson and Morgan.

The Ipswich-based company told the BBC it had no evidence of a link. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said no E. coli cases had been reported in the UK.

However, it has revised its guidance and is advising people not to eat raw sprouted seeds, including alfalfa, mung beans (or beansprouts) and fenugreek.

The agency said these should only be eaten if cooked until steaming hot throughout.

A spokeswoman for Thompson and Morgan said the company sold “hundreds of thousands of packets of these seeds” throughout France, the UK and other parts of Europe every year.

“We are very confident the problem is not with our seeds. People can still grow these seeds and use these seeds with absolute confidence,” she said.

“For such a small number of people to have been affected, it does suggest that the problem is perhaps in the local area, how the seeds have been handled or how they have been grown, rather than the actual seeds themselves.” Continue reading ‘British seed firm ‘linked to French E. coli outbreak’’

New E. coli sicknesses declining

Published on June 14, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

BERLIN – THE number of people falling sick as a result of E. coli contamination has slowed to a trickle, Germany’s national disease control center said on Tuesday, even as the death toll from the outbreak rose by one to 37.

The Robert Koch Institute said a total of 3,235 people in Germany have been reported ill, only seven more than the previous day.

Germany’s health minister has cautioned that even though the outbreak is waning further deaths are possible. The local council in the northern town of Celle said a two-year-old boy died overnight, news agency DAPD reported. German authorities have narrowed the source of the outbreak to vegetable sprouts from a farm in the north of the country.

Thirty-six people in Germany and one in Sweden have now died in what has been the deadliest outbreak of E. coli ever. The crisis has devastated farmers across Europe as frightened consumers shunned vegetables after German authorities initally advised people against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.

On Tuesday, the European Union approved a 210 million euro (S$373 million) compensation package for fruit and vegetable farmers. Continue reading ‘New E. coli sicknesses declining’

German investigators confident that local sprouts caused the deadly E. coli outbreak

Published on June 10, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes, Organic Ag and Vegtables.

BERLIN — Specialists in high-tech labs tested thousands of vegetables as they hunted for the source of world’s deadliest E. coli outbreak, but in the end it was old-fashioned detective work that provided the answer: German-grown sprouts.

After more than a month of searching, health officials announced Friday they had determined that sprouts from an organic farm in the northern German village of Bienenbuettel were the source of the outbreak that has killed 31 people, sickened nearly 3,100 and prompted much of Europe to shun vegetables.

“It was like a crime thriller where you have to find the bad guy,” said Helmut Tschiersky-Schoeneburg, head of Germany’s consumer protection agency.

It’s little surprise that sprouts were the culprit — they have been implicated in many previous food-borne outbreaks: ones in Michigan and Virginia in 2005, and large outbreak in Japan in 1996 that killed 11 people and sickened more than 9,000.

While sprouts are full of protein and vitamins, their ability to transmit disease makes some public health officials nervous. Sprouts have abundant surface area for bacteria to cling to, and if their seeds are contaminated, washing won’t help.

“E. coli can stick tightly to the surface of seeds needed to make sprouts and they can lay dormant on the seeds for months,” Continue reading ‘German investigators confident that local sprouts caused the deadly E. coli outbreak’

E coli: European commissioner suggests £135m payout for farmers

Published on June 7, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

The European agriculture commissioner has proposed spending €150m (£135m) to compensate farmers affected by the E coli outbreak by paying them a proportion of the cost of unsold products.

Dacian Ciolos, speaking before emergency talks between EU agriculture ministers, said farmers could receive around 30% of the cost of vegetables they have been unable to sell due to fears over the outbreak in Germany, which has killed 22 people and made more than 2,200 ill.

“We propose €150m. We will obviously see what we get,” Ciolos said.

The plan was immediately rejected as insufficient by Spain, which has suffered disproportionately from the economic impact of the outbreak, in part because it grows a significant share of Europe’s salad produce but also because cucumbers from the country were initially blamed.

“No, Spain does not see it as sufficient,” the country’s agriculture minister, Rosa Aguilar, said. Spain and some other EU countries had drawn up an alternative plan under which farmers would be compensated for between 90% and 100% of market price losses, she said.

Her French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, has backed the Spanish plan.

The ministers are expected to reach an agreement in principle later on Tuesday. They are coming under intense pressure from the EU farming lobby, which argues that Spanish farmers alone are losing €200m a week due to the outbreak, with weekly €100m losses in Italy. Continue reading ‘E coli: European commissioner suggests £135m payout for farmers’

E coli outbreak: bean sprouts may not be to blame

Published on June 6, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

An investigation into a deadly outbreak of E coli has been thrown into chaos after laboratory tests showed that bean sprouts grown near Hamburg, which had been identified as the likely source, are possibly not to blame.

German officials had said they were confident that sprouts from the organic Gärtenhof farm in Lower Saxony were behind the spread of a particularly virulent strain of the bacterium. There were “strong and clear indications” that the farm was involved, the federal health minister, Daniel Bahr, said.

However, Lower Saxony’s agriculture ministry said 23 of 40 samples from the farm had now tested negative for the E coli, with 17 more tests still being done.

“The search for the outbreak’s cause is very difficult as several weeks have passed since its suspected start,” the ministry said in a statement, while warning that the negative tests did not conclusively prove the sprouts had not been contaminated. The ministry said it may be some time before Europe’s shoppers know for sure what foodstuffs are safe: “A conclusion of the investigations and a clarification of the contamination’s origin is not expected in the short term.”

Mounting suspicions that the outbreak originated in Germany caused outrage in Spain, which has seen a slump in demand for its vegetables after Spanish-grown cucumbers were initially blamed.

The EU is to hold an emergency meeting to consider ways to compensate Spanish farmers for their losses. Continue reading ‘E coli outbreak: bean sprouts may not be to blame’

E coli outbreak: German hospitals struggling to cope

Published on June 5, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

German hospitals are struggling to cope with the surge in patients caused by the E coli outbreak, as the death toll from the virus rose to 22.

The health minister, Daniel Bahr, said hospitals in northern Germany were finding it difficult to provide enough beds and treatment for patients, with the total number of cases increasing to 2,200.

“We’re facing a tense situation with patient care,” Bahr said, “but we will manage it.”

Agriculture officials said that bean sprouts grown in one organic farm between Hamburg and Hanover were the likely cause of the illness.

Hospital authorities said blood supplies were running low and staff were exhausted and working round-the-clock, with the northern cities of Hamburg and Bremen the worst affected.

“They [the doctors] voluntarily come in on weekends and even sleep here,” Oliver Grieve, a spokesman for the Kiel University hospital in northern Germany told Spiegel Online.

Hamburg’s health minister, Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks, told a news conference the city was considering bringing doctors out of retirement. “We want to discuss with doctors about whether those who recently retired can be reactivated,” she said.

Patients with less serious illnesses are now being moved to nearby hospitals and operations for non-threatening diseases are being postponed. Continue reading ‘E coli outbreak: German hospitals struggling to cope’

E coli infections spread around world as Germany reports 200 new cases

Published on June 3, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Cases of infection by the deadly E coli bacterium have continued to spread around the world from its source in northern Germany, reaching a dozen countries by Friday evening as the German chancellor and Spanish prime minister moved to calm a diplomatic row over the source of the infection.

The Czech Republic and the US have joined the list of those dealing with cases amid concern that some of those infected had not visited Germany and so must have been infected elsewhere.

Angela Merkel has said she would push for EU help for farmers in Spain – whose cucumbers were wrongly blamed by German authorities for the outbreak.

Germany reported a further 200 cases diagnosed on the first two days of the month as the total number of people infected worldwide rose above 1,800. The total number of reported deaths in Germany is 19. Just 11 cases have been confirmed in England.

“All these cases except two are in people who reside in or had recently visited northern Germany during the incubation period for the infection … or, in one case, had contact with a visitor from northern Germany,” said the World Health Organisation in a statement.

The spread of cases in Germany has begun to slow, however, raising hopes that the outbreak might be controlled as Germans heed warnings to wash and prepare vegetables carefully and avoid raw cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce. Continue reading ‘E coli infections spread around world as Germany reports 200 new cases’

U.S. farmers, processors not required to test for deadly E. coli strain

Published on June 2, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

TU.S. farmers, processors not required to test for deadly E. coli strain
By Lyndsey Layton, Thursday, June 2, 8:28 AM

The bacterium that has killed more than a dozen Europeans, sickened nearly 2,000 more and raised international alarms would be legal if it were found on meat or poultry in the United States.

If the bacterium were to contaminate fruits or vegetables grown here, there would be no way to prevent an outbreak, because farmers and processors are not required to test for the pathogen before the food heads to supermarkets.

“If somehow this strain got into that same environment and spread rapidly, it would represent a major disaster in terms of the U.S. food industry and risk to humans,” said J. Glenn Morris, a former official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture who directs the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. “The regulatory framework is a couple of steps behind.”

The strain that has emerged in Europe is a particularly virulent version of E. coli 0104 and, in the outbreak that began in early May, has been linked to more than 1,600 illnesses and 18 deaths. About 500 people — an unusually large percentage of those who have been sickened — have developed a life-threatening kidney complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, for which there is no treatment. Continue reading ‘U.S. farmers, processors not required to test for deadly E. coli strain’