The U.S. Does Not Require Mexican Farms To Be Certified

When you buy Mexican fruit you are taking a chance with your health. Neither the United States nor Mexico imposes food safety rules when exporting to the U.S.

Hundreds of tons of vegetables are shipped to the United States each year from Mexico. Anywhere along the production cycle disease could be lurking. Without inspections that cheap pepper could be the death of you. Earlier this year at least 1,440 people came down with a rare form of salmonella in the United States. It is suspected that the source from produce shipped in from Mexico. The Associated Press confirmed that workers handling chili peppers aren't required to separate them according to sanitary conditions. Some Mexican farmers are stringent about their sanitary guidelines but many aren't. Without those guidelines contaminated produce crosses the border bringing with it disease. To sell produce in the United States all a Mexican farm has to do is register online. Farmers who have contracts with certain supermarkets in the U.S. have high standards of sanitation to be certified as a supplier. Otherwise the chains will pass them by. There is no public list though of the chains that require certification of their foreign produce. The United States government has only 625 FDA inspectors checking all the produce entering the nation and within the nation. Stores and restaurants are expected to police their produce instead. The best Mexican farms fence off their fields, irrigate with fresh water and pack their produce in spotless plants. The best production centers have their employees in protective gear from head to toe. Other farms use water that is laced with sewage. Wildlife roams freely in their unfenced fields. Salmonella is on the skin of produce or lurking inside of it. While cooking will kill it a simple wash will not. Agricola Zaragoza is one of the plants in Mexico suspected of importing the contaminated chili peppers earlier this year. The plant washes produce from both certified and uncertified producers. CNS News reports:

"It is very common for distributors to receive products from numerous sources, numerous farms and in some cases multiple countries," Hubbard said. "That's just the way produce moves."

The U.S. Senate is proposing a bill that will tighten produce laws. While a law was passed in 1994 to insure safe produce it is rarely enforced. Alfonso Alvarez has a certified farm in Jalisco. He sells his crop to a Canadian company that imports to the U.S. and Canada.

"Those of us who want to enter the U.S. market and position our brand know we must meet all those standards, because we also know it will be a profitable business in the long run," Alvarez said.

He and other Mexican farmers with sanitary farms want the United States to set up a certification program that covers both growers and packing plants.

"Those who grow in open fields will ruin it for those who produce in greenhouses," Alvarez said, "and that's not fair."