Cory Mellon full interview
“CAITLIN: Welcome back, I’m here with Cory Mellon who is the president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association. Thank you Cory for joining us today. Tell me a little bit about your farm and what you grow?
CORY: I’m with Mellon Farms and we grow winter vegetable produce.
CAITLIN: How long has farming been in your family?
CORY: I’m third generation. My grandfather started it back in 1943 about a mile and a half from where we are today so we have been around Yuma for a while.
CAITLIN: What does farming mean to you?
CORY: You know, my dad started me off early when I was a child. I started going to work with my brothers when I was five. I started working beside them when I was eight and it’s basically all I’ve known. I go the chance to go to college in California and go to see other parts of this nation and experience things and I’ve always had a love for agriculture. I always knew I wanted to come home to Yuma and be a part of this industry.
CAITLIN: In light of the recent romaine lettuce recalls due to food safety can you share how it makes you feel when you hear of these situations?
CORY: You know, when you first get the email or hear about it on the news your heart drops. You start thinking of the people affected by it. The men, the women, the children. It hits home. I have a 16 year old and a nine year old daughter and it could be them or myself or my wife and then it’s your industry that’s involved so the first thoughts are always the people and then the next thought is how do we fix it? How do we improve what we are doing?
CAITLIN: What are some of the pressures farmers are under?
CORY: We are just like any other industry where we are making a commodity to sell to people but the major difference is we grow our commodities outdoors which brings in mother nature. We have to deal with weather and any other kind of economic factors. High prices for inputs, the price of labor, things of that nature and now recently these E. Coli outbreaks that keep coming up.
CAITLIN: Why is it frustrating for the industry when a foodborne illness breaks out?
CORY: The major frustration for me as a grower is we are looking for something that you cannot see, you can’t smell, you can’t taste, you can’t hear so I can’t walk out there in the field and say oh I’ve got that problem. It’s found after it’s been off of my ranch for weeks and that’s the biggest frustration for myself.
CAITLIN: And in turn a lot of product goes to waste like your beautiful field right here behind us.
CORY: That’s right, the market conditions are down. With the cost of harvesting it now it makes more sense to disk this under.
CAITLIN: So we cannot donate any of this?
CORY: The problem with donation is yes, we would love to run it up to the Yuma Community Food Bank or elsewhere but the labor involved in cutting it would make it not conducive to do that.
CAITLIN: Can you share what the process is like from the field to the dinner plate?
CORY: We grow it here in Yuma and then a harvest company comes and cuts it and they will cool it and process it in the processing facility. Then it would be shipped across the U.S. to consumers, to distribution centers, to restaurants and supermarkets and at that point the consumer purchases it and puts it on their plate.
CAITLIN: Other than farmers who else if affected by recalls?
CORY: Anyone that’s in any section of the industry whether it’s the labor to harvest the crop, grow the crop, irrigate the crop, the truckers that take it across our nation, the distribution centers they are all affected.
CAITLIN: How can we track bad food down to the farm it came from?
CORY: There is a trace ability aspect to what we do. It does need improvement but on the farm level. There are some flags in the field and on those flags are written pertinent information to when it was planted, what crop it is, what variety it is and all the inputs that we put to that crop are tied back to that labeling system so on the farm level it is very easy to capture. We hold that information going forward. When it’s harvested it gets put into the harvest. It’s carried to the cooler with that harvest information and shipped across the U.S. with that information attached to it. There are some issues up above the food chain where that information can get lost. Some things are still done by paper as far as trucking and manifestos and things of that nature. It can go to a distributor that may or may not have an accurate accounting system as far as inventory control and that’s where the breakdown is happening at that point. But on the farm level we have very good records of our crops.
CAITLIN: Is there anything you feel our viewers need to know?
CORY: As farmers, we are really good at growing crops. That’s what we do day in and day out. As advocates for ourselves and our industry we are not so good so we need to do a better job at getting our story out. One of the stories I want the consumer to know is that I also am a consumer. My wife and I buy our produce from the grocery store. We feed it to our family, my two daughters. We eat at the same restaurants everyone else eats at so we are at the same risk. When you talk about the risk of an E. Coli outbreak there was an article written in the Wall Street Journal not too long ago that talked about the statistics of becoming sick from E. Coli or being hospitalized by E. Coli and it referenced that there was a one in 11 million chance that you would become sick from E. Coli. One in 28 million chance that you would be hospitalized from E. Coli. If you look at those statistics they are pretty good when in fact there is a one in one million chance that would be struck by lightning any given year so I want the general consumer to know that our product is safe and that we are also consumers of that product.
CAITLIN: Thank you so much Cory for your time, I appreciate it.
