GMOs, food safety, and what we need to be concerned about

Weber and Ginny Stibolt probably discussing food or farming
at Thanksgiving in 2015. (Much of the feast was vegan!)

By Weber Stibolt
Food Science and chemistry major at University of Delaware

For seasoned veterans of this blog, you will remember my guest posts from back when I worked on a farm in 2014 in southern Delaware helping with food safety. Down on the Farm and Harvesting Corn. In brief, I helped this farm through an advanced USDA produce audit for the first time. It was the first time that I had done something like that, so it certainly was a learning experience for us both. Since that internship, I have continued my studies in food science and will be graduating from the University of Delaware in May.

Recognition of work

Recently, I was awarded a scholarship from the Food Marketing Institute Foundation for my work in the past with food safety and for aspiring to go into this field when I graduate. As an extra bonus to the scholarship, I was able to get to go to the annual Safe Quality Food Institute Conference in Indianapolis. While I was there, I learned so much about the hidden world of food safety and met many people who specialize in this type of work.
What has prompted this post in particular was a comment that I made on Facebook regarding the Chipotle outbreak following my attendance at this conference:

Crazy idea. How about instead of pushing for GMO labeling - which is inherently pointless considering that GMOs are ubiquitous - we instead push for labeling of food safety certifications of manufacturers. Something like "SQF Level 3 Certified" or "USDA GAP & GHP Certified Produce" would be much more beneficial to consumers than GMO labeling.

Chipotle has had many outbreaks - 2009 outbreak of E. coli. O157:H7 in Colorado, 2015 Salmonella outbreak in Minnesota, a 2015 norovirus outbreak in California, and now this O26 outbreak across Seattle and Portland. So think about that.

Harvesting corn: Down on the farm

A guest post from my grandson Weber who is working on a farm in Delaware this summer. 
 

Summer at Magee Farms: Part Two

(Summer at Magee Farms: Part One)

Hi everyone – I would have sent in another post sooner, but once we started the sweet corn harvest, I have been working 12-hour days and haven’t had time to sit down and write this. I certainly was not expecting how busy it was going to get. After these first two weeks of harvest, I have much greater appreciation of all the work that goes into large-scale farming. In this post I am going to talk about the life of the corn – how it’s harvested, what happens to it at the packingshed where I work, and where it goes to be sold. 

Down on the farm

A guest post from my grandson Weber who is working on a farm this summer. 

Summer at Magee Farms: Part One

Hi! My name is Weber Stibolt, and I’m one of Ginny’s grandchildren. This summer I am working at a produce farm in southern Delaware, and she asked me to write a few columns for you to show you a little bit about what goes on behind the scenes. I am a rising junior and am studying Food Science at the University of Delaware. 

Although there are many paths that I can take with this degree, one of the aspects that interests me the most is food safety. With increased capability to detect foodborne pathogens and an increase in food safety regulations like the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, there is and will be an increased demand for specialists to help producers of food ensure that they are taking the necessary steps in order to reduce the risk of microbial contamination. 

A family farm

Magee Farms has been a family farm since 1865 and this is the fifth generation farming the land. 

I have been hired as a Food Safety Manager to assist the produce farm in keeping records and making sure everything is in order for the annual food safety audit. I will mainly be overseeing the packinghouse where the watermelons and sweet corn that the farm produces are packed and put onto trucks to be sold at local supermarkets. 

The picture below shows just some of the paperwork that goes in to all of this! The government agency completing the audit is the USDA. The paperwork isn't necessarily being turned in - it's being reviewed by them to make sure we are in compliance with everything that needs to be done and is just a means for collecting data like temperatures of water and proper levels of chlorination and a whole list of other things that I will cover in more detail in later posts.

More pictures and posts to come. ~Weber

  

Have you thanked your farmers today?

Green Gardening Matters,

Ginny Stibolt