Hot peppers on salmonella risk list

Tomato farmers across the US are losing millions of dollars as shoppers shun their crops after they were linked with a salmonella scare.

Growers have been forced to plough under their fields or leave their tomatoes to rot in packing houses. With losses across the supply chain topping 100 million dollars (£50 million), industry leaders are calling for a congressional investigation into the government's handling of the outbreak, the source of which has still not been found.

Fast-food chains McDonald's, Wendy's and Yum Brands resumed offering some tomatoes on their menus in the past few weeks.

But now, during one of the biggest barbecue weekends of the year, tomato farmers say their summer season has already withered despite the government's recent announcement that some other type of fresh produce might have caused the salmonella outbreak, which has hit more than 900 people.

"Now the government has a doubt as to whether it was tomatoes after they've already blackened our eye?" said grower Paul DiMare. "June and July are the best time of the year for tomatoes, but our movement has completely stopped in the United States."

Farmers, packers and deliverers fear it could take months to rebuild the 1.3 billion dollar market for fresh tomatoes.

In Fresno County, one grower chose to lose 225,000 dollars by letting his tomatoes rot in the fields because he would have taken a bigger hit hiring people to harvest them.

Mr DiMare is critical of the Food and Drug Administration's progress on the investigation.

Officials with the FDA and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have said the sheer complexity of the outbreak and the industry's vast international supply chain have hampered efforts to find the sources of contamination.

In April, before the first victim fell ill, federal agriculture authorities visited Florida packing houses and tomato farms on a special mission to assess food safety conditions.