Standing next to a truckload of iceberg lettuce, Taylor Farms’ Mark Borman points to a green sticker on one of the crates. The label is the Salinas company’s administrative line of defense from a deadly strain of E. coli. The sticker has a plot number from the supplying ranch, the time of harvest (8:27am) and a barcode Taylor Farms scans to ensure the field passed a series of audits, from assessing water quality to the presence of wildlife. Borman, vice president of operations, says workers verify the paperwork before sending the lettuce to be chopped, rinsed and bagged. “It’s essentially a red light, green light system,” Borman says. “The produce doesn’t get into our system before we have the records in place.”

Of the approximately 2 million pounds of produce that pulls up to Taylor Farms’ loading dock every day, about 2 percent is stopped, Borman says. If the audits don’t check out, the crop is tossed. “We definitely throw away a significant amount of produce that probably last year would have been fine to us,” Borman says.

A year after a nationwide E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak linked to bagged spinach, this kind of monitoring has become standard in the state’s leafy green industry. The measures are part of the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement. The signatories, companies that harvest nearly all the leafy greens in the state, have implemented farming practices meant to prevent E. coli from contaminating crops. But the science is still out on how the pathogen migrates through the food system. And as uncertainties mount over whether the farming practices are effective, tainted greens still turn up.

“If the cold chain is broken with those bags they become little incubators.”

On Sept. 17, Dole Fresh Vegetables recalled more than 5,000 bags of “Dole Hearts Delight” after a sample in a Canadian grocery store discovered the pathogen. Two of the types of lettuce in the salad blend, green leaf and some of the romaine, were grown in the Salinas Valley, while butter lettuce and romaine came from Ohio and Colorado, respectively. Investigators haven’t pinpointed where the contamination originated. No confirmed illnesses have been reported.

The recall has renewed calls for government involvement in regulating produce safety. In this case it was the Canadian government that found the E. coli, not Dole. The near catastrophe evokes memories of last September, when spinach sold under the Dole label sickened more than 200 people across the country and killed three.

Bill Marler, the Seattle-based attorney who sued Dole as well as Natural Selection Foods (Earthbound Farm) for processing the spinach, says the federal government needs to make sure all producers and suppliers follow the same rules to prevent future outbreaks. “I think the industry really should adjust to the fact that they need to be watched a bit,” Marler says.

The Marketing Agreement requires stringent irrigation water and compost testing prior to harvest but doesn’t require lab samples of raw product unless there is a reason to suspect contamination. Earthbound Farm, on the other hand, tests and holds lettuce before it enters the processing facility. The finished product is then tested again before it is packed.

Hoping to establish national standards for produce safety, US Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., introduced legislation last week that would make a “best practices” program mandatory, increase inspections and require a traceback system for contaminated crops. Harkin wants to enact on the federal level what state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, has tried to do in Sacramento.

Joe Pezzini, like others in the industry, welcomes a national program. Pezzini is chairman of the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Advisory Board and vice president of operations at Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville. “Food safety isn’t something that stops at a state border,” Pezzini says. “We think what we’ve done here for a while should be implemented on a national level.”

This worries Judith Redmond. Redmond is a co-owner of Fully Belly Farm in Yolo County and board president of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). Redmond says the requirements of filling out forms and doing field assessments would overburden farmers who harvest small plots everyday. The guidelines – which have led some growers to tear out vegetation from riverbanks in an effort to keep wildlife out – could undo years of environmental stewardship, Remond says.

“I think the voluminous paperwork and the war on wildlife are the only really new things that are being introduced,” Redmond says. “I don’t think either of them are going to be effective in preventing new food safety problems.”

Redmond says the guidelines’ focus should shift to bagged salads only. Since 1999, 80 percent of E. coli outbreaks in California leafy greens have been traced to ready-to-eat greens, according to FDA data compiled by CAFF. Nearly all of the 539 reported illnesses came from the processed vegetables.

Since bacteria can grow if it is not properly refrigerated, Redmond says a person stuck in traffic after a trip to the grocery store could equal disaster. “If the cold chain is broken with those bags they become little incubators.”

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A river of iceberg runs down the processing line at Taylor Farms. After it’s chopped, three different chlorinated water streams rinse the lettuce. A few workers dressed in full-body, white uniforms and blue gloves monitor the centrifuge dryers and the feed line up to bagging. Aside from them, the chain seems to operate without a human hand.

Borman looks on from an observation room above the plant. He says Taylor Farms considered implementing a test and hold approach but the company didn’t think it would be an effective way to ensure that their produce is safe. “If it is not statistically valid it can give you a false sense of security,” he says.

Borman acknowledges that there is no kill step for E. coli, and cross contamination can occur when tainted lettuce is mixed in the processing facility. But he says Taylor Farms focuses on stopping infection to begin with. “We check for contaminants at the field level before it’s harvested,” he says. “We have a high level of confidence that the product we have from the farm is safe and clean to process.”