Prevalence and cost of on-farm produce safety measures in the Mid-Atlantic

- Many growers already use produce safety practices required by new FDA regulations.
- Most produce safety practices exhibit significant economies of scale.
- The cost burden of these regulations is less for larger operations than smaller ones.

We use data from a survey of leafy green and tomato growers in the Mid-Atlantic region to investigate the prevalence and cost of produce safety practices required under the Produce Rule of the Food Safety Modernization Act. Majorities of our respondents currently employ most of the food safety practices that will be required under the Produce Rule. But the Produce Rule will nevertheless require changes on the part of some growers. We find that farm size has a statistically and quantitatively negligible relationship with the use of most produce safety practices except for the sampling and testing of water, soil amendments, and product samples. Contrary to the theoretical literature suggesting that traceability increases incentives to take precautionary measures, we find little evidence that the use of produce safety practices is correlated with any marketing channel. We do find that all of these practices exhibit substantial increasing returns to scale, implying that the burden of complying with the provisions of the Produce Rule is much lower for large operations than small ones.