As tomatoes blush a deep red in farms and gardens throughout the country this week, growers are panicking that a 17-state salmonella outbreak linked to raw tomatoes could shrivel up their summer market.
On Tuesday, federal authorities cleared fresh tomatoes grown in Florida and California - the nation's top two tomato-producing states - of any responsibility in the national food poisoning scare, which has sickened 167 people since April.
But farmers said the list of safe-to-eat varieties still isn't enough to convince consumers that tomatoes are safe for salads and salsas, or to move their crops back on grocery shelves and restaurant menus.
"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 spinach E. coli outbreak is that regardless of where the problem exists, it affects all growers."
Federal officials are still hunting for the source of the bacterial outbreak, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is linked to a rare strain called salmonella saintpaul.
A 67-year-old cancer patient in Texas who health officials said was sickened by salmonella at a Mexican restaurant is believed to be the first death associated with the scare.
Just three varieties - red plum, red Roma and round red tomatoes - are thought to have caused the illnesses.
Still, growers say the outbreak has affected peoples' perceptions of all tomatoes, especially since major restaurant and grocery chains including McDonald's, Wal-Mart and Burger King announced earlier this week they were withdrawing the three varieties from their shelves and menus unless they were grown in state and countries not linked to the scare.
The bulk of the nation's tomatoes are grown in Florida, where harvest season is ending, and most workers have left to pick crops farther north.
The scare had already done significant economic damage to growers, grocers and restaurateurs, Florida Agriculture Department spokeswoman Liz Compton said.
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.
And if the federal government takes weeks to uncover the source, those numbers could climb higher, industry experts warned.
"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-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.
Federal officials say cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and homegrown tomatoes are likely not the source of the outbreak.
Also not associated with the salmonella outbreak are raw red Roma, red plum and round red tomatoes from Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Netherlands and Puerto Rico.
On Tuesday, a major Mexican tomato-growers' association said U.S. importers had stopped buying their winter tomatoes.
The outbreak is hurting Mexican growers because they can't sell their crops to U.S. buyers, 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, where they will be sold at a lower price.
In Georgia, growers have seen a decline in tomato orders since Monday alone, said Charles Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
In western North Carolina, tomato grower Melinda James said the outbreak hasn't affected farmers yet, but she posted information from the Food and Drug Administration at her fruit stand to let customers know the Georgia-grown tomatoes she sells are safe.
Still, she says she wouldn't order a tomato-based dish at a restaurant for fear of infection.
"If I were going to a chain, I would not eat tomatoes," said James, president of the N.C. Tomato Growers Association. "I don't think they have any idea where they come from."
Salmonella, a bacteria that lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals, is usually transmitted to humans by eating foods contaminated with animal feces.
Most infected people suffer fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps starting 12 to 72 hours after infection.
In Fresno, where tomatoes grow in the flat lands below the Sierra Nevada mountains, industry leaders said they would distribute signs to grocery stores to assure customers that California-grown tomatoes posed no danger.
"Farmers are committed to ensuring the field-grown tomatoes we produce are always safe to eat," said Ed Beckman, president of the California Tomato Farmers, a grower-owned cooperative that represents about 80 percent of the fresh tomatoes grown in the state. "Simply stated, our livelihoods depend on it."
