Farmers lament scare over crop

FRESNO, Calif. — Tomato growers are panicking that a 17-state salmonella outbreak linked to raw tomatoes could hurt their summer market.

"Even though our tomatoes are safe, we know consumers are going to stay away from our product this year," said Jack King, the California Farm Bureau Federation's national affairs manager. "The lesson we learned with the [2006] spinach E. coli outbreak is that regardless of where the problem exists, it affects all growers."

The bulk of the nation's tomatoes are grown in Florida, where harvest season is ending.

If consumers stop buying tomatoes, the state's tomato industry could lose more than $40 million, said Doug Archer, associate dean for the Institute of Food and Agricultural Science at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

"This is a nightmare for growers. This is right when their product should be coming to market, and everyone is saying don't buy it," said Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. "The tragedy is that people will quit eating things that are safe because they're worried."

In San Diego County, where field crews are preparing to pick the Romas and vine-ripe tomatoes planted on bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, growers fear they won't be able to unload their harvest, said Eric Larson, executive director of the county's farm bureau.

U.S. importers had stopped buying winter tomatoes from Mexico, said Mario Robles, a spokesman for the Sinaloa state Tomato Growers Association, which ships 44 percent of all Mexican tomatoes to the U.S. and Canada.

Instead, growers along Mexico's Pacific Coast are rerouting their tomatoes to Mexican markets, to be sold at a lower price.

In Georgia, growers have seen a decline in tomato orders since Monday, said Charles Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.

In Fresno, Calif., industry leaders said they would distribute signs to assure customers that California-grown tomatoes posed no danger.