Local farmer first to pass audit

Local farmer first to pass audit

Tomato grower certified as following labor, safety laws

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

A fourth-generation farmer based in Bradenton has become the first tomato grower in the state to complete an industry audit designed to assure buyers his company is following labor, safety and other laws.

"I pride myself on what I do and how I run my operation," said Jim Grainger, 45, who heads Grainger Farms on 4,000 acres in Manatee and Collier counties. "I wanted to see if I was walking the walk."

The audit by the London-based firm Intertek is the first step toward certification by an industry-funded group called Socially Accountable Farm Employers, or SAFE. Grainger, who passed the audit this week, said Intertek recommended a few minor changes to his operation, such as having both managers and employees sign a logbook indicating their attendance at safety meetings.

But the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an advocacy group that says it represents 5,000 farmworkers in Southwest Florida, criticized SAFE as inadequate and added that farmworkers did not have a voice in the group's creation.

"They should already be complying with the law," coalition spokesman Lucas Benitez said Friday.

Ray Gilmer, spokesman for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association in Maitland, said SAFE is a proactive initiative set in motion by the association in the belief that one day major buyers will require it.

"We think SAFE is a good thing for the industry as well as the grower community and farmworker community," Gilmer said. "It provides a seal of approval, kind of like fair-trade coffee, that says these tomatoes or (this) lettuce are grown, produced and harvested with labor that is treated fairly, paid fairly and has access to safety equipment.

"Benitez said the Intertek audit is not neutral because the grower pays for it.

The coalition's priority right now is higher wages for tomato pickers, who are mostly Mexican and Guatemalan migrants.

"There should be true economic relief.

Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, has agreed to pay a penny more a pound for tomatoes," he said.

Workers employed by companies that sell to Taco Bell are now receiving 77 cents a bucket for tomatoes instead of 45 cents, Benitez said. The agreement, reached last year by workers and Yum, followed a four-year boycott of the chain.In November, the coalition urged consumers nationwide to pressure McDonald's Corp. into paying more for tomatoes and making sure the increase is passed on to pickers.

This week, the group launched a letter-writing campaign against the fast-food giant.The Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Web site has started offering a letter for interested members of the public to give to their local McDonald's manager.

"We are giving the public another way to talk to McDonald's through the people who work at McDonald's," Benitez said.Walt Riker, a spokesman for Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's, said the chain offered input on the SAFE program. The company particularly likes the program's third-party audit aspect.SAFE ultimately will provide more in worker benefits than raising the price of tomatoes a penny per pound, he said. "Let's give the program a chance to work," Riker said.