Home Grown viewer questions part 2

In this week’s Home Grown we asked our viewers what questions they would like us to ask a farmer on general agriculture.

Reporter Caitlin Slater sat down with farmer, John Boelts to bring you some of those answers in part two.

Question One: What crops are grown here in Yuma besides lettuce?

“We grow a wide variety of crops here in Yuma,” Vice President of Arizona Farm Bureau, John Boelts said.

“Vegetable-seed crops are a big deal here in Yuma, broccoli, cauliflower, onion seeds, and the like and lots of minor crops as well. We have a great climate to grow through the winter and that’s why we are growing fresh vegetables here and other vegetable seed crops really benefit from our climate. As we get into the warmer months we are finishing up our durum wheat and we are moving into sudan grass, melons, cotton and those sort of crops,” he said.

Question Two: Where does produce likely pick up contamination? In the field or processing plant?

Boelts: “That’s difficult to say. Every particular situation that arises is different. There is potential in the field, there is potential in the handling and cooling process, there’s also potential if the vegetables are processed and different pathogens, different human pathogens are more prone in certain areas. But there is certainly a possibility everywhere. When we look at E. Coli, the particular strains of E. Coli that are pathogenic, Salmonella, and listeria and those are difficult to know where they are going to be so we follow our best practices to exclude them no matter what stage the crop is at,” Boelts said.

Question Three: Why do farm owners still use manual labor instead of machinery?

Boelts: “There are particular tasks that are very difficult for machines to do and we haven’t quite developed the machinery to the point where we can use it effectively and meet the consumers desires such as harvesting head lettuce. It’s a very fragile plant and people expect perfect quality, no damage to that product and so hand harvest is still the most efficient and it’s rather expensive but we appreciate the workers that do the job and we certainly appreciate trying to meet those consumers needs and trying to meet those quality preferences,” he said.