US: State farmers hurting from tomato scare

FreshPlaza.com

While small Georgia tomato growers say they're having no problems selling their fruit at local farmers markets, the big commercial growers are watching the clock tick this weekend as their first harvest of the season closes out with boxes of tomatoes sitting unshipped because of the salmonella scare.

Tomato prices have plunged from about $17 to about $7 for a 25-pound box, according to the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association.

"It's frustrating that the FDA has taken this long to find the source" of the salmonella outbreak, said Bill Brim, a tomato farmer and head of the growers association. "And it's even more frustrating the way the media has played this outbreak up."

Food and Drug Administration inspectors are searching tomato farms in Florida and Mexico in the two-month-old salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 500 people,10 in Georgia.

"The FDA did tell us Friday they had a trace back to farms in Florida and Mexico, but, as far as I know, they haven't gotten here yet," Florida Department of Agriculture public information director Liz Compton said Saturday.

Compton said the FDA said the source of the salmonella might not be a farm but could instead "be somewhere in the supply" line of distributors or storage facilities.

Ten days ago, the FDA cleared farms in Georgia and other states as the source of the salmonella outbreak.

But Brim said that message hasn't gotten to consumers who are still wary of the fruit at grocery stores and restaurants.

"People like Kroger and Publix have brought them back, but that hasn't restored consumer confidence," said Brim.

The FDA must find the source of the contamination in "three or four days" or much of the state's first tomato crop of the season will go bad on the vine or sitting in warehouses, he said.

Tomatoes are an estimated $90 million to $100 million annual crop in Georgia. Brim estimated losses so far at "three or four hundred thousand dollars."

Source: ajc.com