Ken Harrison e-mailed this regarding the aflatoxin remark I touched on yesterday.
I noticed the Aflatoxin wars in Illinois growing more heated as the grain merchants/processors are in conflict with the farmer and then the crop insurance/taxpayer has another view. I thought the following was interesting as a work around. Not sure it solves the variability of the test but it does resolve some conflict. The consumer deserves a food policy that provides abundant safe food.
Here is link to article about how TX jointly solved aflatoxin issues/conflict between processor, insurance and farmer.
Here is excerpt from the article:
“The solution is the One Sample Strategy, a voluntary aflatoxin risk management program administered by the Office of the Texas State Chemist and approved by RMA,” Herrman said. “The program provides a mechanism to standardize sampling and testing equipment and methods to achieve less variable results.”
Participating grain elevator employees are trained and approved as Office of the State Chemist designees to perform standardized sampling and testing procedures defined by USDA and the Office of the Texas State Chemist. Testing accuracy is maintained through monitoring and program oversight by state chemist field investigators.
“The official test results are reported by the OTSC designees, issued by the elevator on an OTSC Certificate of Analysis and shared with RMA,” Herrman said. “One sample is taken from a truckload of corn and used by all stakeholders to inform purchasing, insurance and regulatory risk management decisions.”
From the perspective of producers and insurers, Jones said, it has standardized the testing process and helped reduce uncertainty.”
He said the time invested in testing pays off when a reliable test result is used to determine the true quality of the corn for sale. This allows a faster and more accurate assessment of lost revenue is readily available for crop insurance claims. Ultimately, the program creates a fair playing field for producers and elevators.
“Everyone’s corn can be tested the same way and we can all do a better job of protecting consumers and the health of the Texas grain industry,” Herrman said.
To find a participating elevator in your area or learn more about becoming approved for the program, visit the One Sample Strategy Web site at http://otscweb.tamu.edu/risk/OneSample.
More news from: Texas A&M University
Website: http://www.tamu.edu
Unfortunately, this strikes me as excellent help for our next major drought.
2 comments:
We have the same type of state-sanctioned testing for all the milk that is sold in this country. Do grain farmers realize that every load of milk delivered to a processing plant goes through sampling and testing before it can be deposited at the processing site? The system works well, but there are still hiccups...we have been penalized for a "tainted" load of milk and further testing showed that the tanker was not contaminated. Didn't matter...one positive test and that load has to be dumped! The test will be only be as consistent as the people trained to do the testing...in our case, an incompetent technician working on a Saturday night in the delivery bay cost us a load of milk and a black mark on our record.
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