Science, Standards, and Power: New Food Safety Governance in California

TLDR: The authors examined how powerful players in the produce industry organized a strategic approach to governing leafy greens production in California and highlighted serious concerns regarding participation and transparency in the creation of food safety standards.

Abstract: In 2006, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 associated with California spinach resulted in widespread illness across the United States. The magnitude of the outbreak and the resulting media attention demanded a change in the governance of leafy green produce. Drawing from more than 130 personal interviews, this paper critically examines how powerful players in the produce industry organized a strategic approach to governing leafy greens production in California. Networks are used to explore the evolution of new industry-led food safety standards and how they directly conflicted with and overpowered environmental agendas. This paper highlights serious concerns regarding participation and transparency in the creation of food safety standards, identifying patterns of winners and losers and suggesting ways in which we might foster more democratic approaches to food governance. Although a new faculty member at Michigan State, I am very familiar with the work of Lawrence Busch and others from the Michigan State University (MSU) School of Agrifood Governance and Technoscience. Their work has provided substantial insight for agrifood scholars, helping us to understand and grapple with the increasing changes in food systems and food governance. My work remains heavily influenced by Busch and others’ ideas about science (Busch 2000a, 2002, 2007), actor-network theory (Busch 2000b; Busch and Juska 1997; Gouveia and Juska 2002), and the role of private standards in food governance (Busch 2000a, 2003; Busch and Bain 2004; Hatanaka and Busch 2008; Juska et al. 2000; Konefal, Mascarenhas, and Hatanaka 2005). This work has guided and shaped my research in California exploring new food safety standards developed and put forth by the produce industry. The work of the MSU School has raised important concerns about current trends in food governance that are clearly illustrated in the present paper. This paper not only affirms these concerns but further exposes the