Small Growers Require Big Food Safety

By Nye Joell Hardy, Independent Food Safety Consultant

Small growers always have to fight to be viable businesses. They don’t get the bulk discounts that larger growers get on rents, supplies, chemicals, water, or even labor. If there is bad weather or bad market in any one season, they lose everything. And during the growing season — even if everything else goes well — they must wear all hats, all the time, and the work never stops. So, small growers are not left a lot of time to ponder, or even more importantly, implement food safety practices.

To make that situation even more precarious, small growers often have trouble getting the kind of assistance with food safety they need: 1) guidance in food safety compliance, 2) database solutions, and 3) reliable third-party auditing.

This lack of food safety solutions for small growers has already been a critical issue for our industry, because a food safety hazard that arises in any size of operation has dangerous (and often national) consequences. Small growers cannot have “small food safety,” and as an industry, we need to take the challenges that face small growers seriously. But what can small growers do now?