Post by local farmer shows romaine crops dumped per CDC warning

On Friday, John Boelts, first vice president for Arizona farm bureau posted several photos on Twitter that have been shocking consumers over the past 24 hours.

Since the new recent E. Coli outbreak, the Center for Disease Control has urged any romaine growers to not sell or distribute any of their romaine lettuce.

According to Boelts, this has caused “hundreds of 40,000-pound truckloads” to be dumped that were harvested last Wednesday.

That is almost $.20 per pound and six months of farming work.

Boelts, who is also the owner of several local romaine fields wants his followers to understand the impact this cease of distribution would cause.

According to him, he does not believe the outbreak occurred in Yuma; however, the farmers still had to dump the majority of their harvested romaine.

The Twitter post voiced his frustration that this romaine could not even be donated to a local food bank per the CDC’s recommendation.

Over the last 24 hours, followers have asked Boelts what this outbreak means for the lettuce they purchase at their local grocery store.

“Consumers all over the U.S. and Canada have heard public agencies saying ‘don’t buy or sell romaine’, but that’s easy to say, when it comes to food fresh produce like romaine lettuce it’s a perishable product and it really is only good for a handful of days,” Boelts said.

“Once [the romaine] is cut, it really needs to leave Yuma within 24 hours, so it has it’s best usable shelf life,” Boelts said.

The romaine only has a shelf life of two to three weeks.

In the case of the discarded romaine, the farmers had harvested it last Wednesday, and because of the recommendation by the CDC and FDA that people do not eat or sell romaine lettuce, that product needed to be destroyed.

“That’s really too bad,” Boelts said.

Boelts said that though the CDC is trying to keep people safe, he believes to be a fact that “there is zero percent association between the issues that were presenting themselves in the marketplace back in September and October, that made people ill,” Boelts said.

Boelts supports this by saying that farmers have only been harvesting for two to three weeks.

According to Boelts, the CDC is hoping to give a source location of the outbreak by Monday.

“That basically means we have lost a week’s worth of harvest,” Boelts said.

A bigger issue according to Boelts is what consumer confidence will look like.

“That always takes a big hit from these sorts of recommendations, unfortunately , that’s where we struggle,” Boelts said.

To Boelts, the most important thing is that people eat a healthy meal with no problems and everyone can go back to normal and that those who have fallen ill, will get the medical care they need.

With perishable products, this fear of consumers can be devastating to farmers.

According to Boelts, there are approximately 5000 people who harvest romaine each day who are idled right now.

On top of that, another couple thousand people who work in coolers and who transport the romaine are also idled.

This could mean tens of millions of dollars just in the product that could go to waste in the fields and billions of dollars of impact to markets, according to Boelts.

“Farmers and growers are on the front lines,” Boelts said.

Boelts said he is looking forward to when farmers alike can get back to selling and distributing a safe product.

“Hopefully consumers will get the message as loud and clear as they did to stop they get the message just as loud and clear to return to the marketplace.”

The outbreaks are isolated events according to Boelts, and he hopes consumers will shift their buying habits only until the all clear and then go back to trusting romaine crops.

“As farmers, we are doing our absolute level best to make sure that every single serving for every single costomer is healthy every single day.”