The Green Valley Pecan Company announced last week that it has earned the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Certification. The certification is a standard used to assess food safety practices.
Green Valley Pecan was evaluated on food-handling processes such as receiving, storage, processing and packing of pecan nuts at its Sahuarita, Arizona facility.
While the Green Valley Pecan Company is the world’s largest grower and processor of pecans, it employs a handful of Arizonans.
The farmers in the Rosemont Mine desert area of Southern Arizona use 800 gallons of water to grow one pound of pecans. Rosemont Mine’s process uses only 8 gallons of water to produce one pound of copper. Copper is recycled so effectively that 80% of copper is continuously reused, whereas pecans are consumed and become part of the waste problem.
Dave Efnor, a graduate mining engineer from the University of Utah with more than 25 years of mining experience, writing for Inside Tucson Business, offered an assessment of the current and projected future water use by pecan farmers compared to that of the Rosemont Mine once it starts operating:
- Pecan Farms Rosemont
- 1 yr’s use 30,000 acre feet 5,500 acre feet
- Gallons per yr. 9.75 million 1.79 million
- Since 2005 78.2 million gals. 0
- 20 yrs. (acre feet) 600,000 110,000
- 20 yrs. (gals) 195 billion 35.75 billion
Green Valley Pecan has been family owned and operated since 1937. The company has over 8,000 acres of orchards in Arizona and Georgia and food manufacturers throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
“Many have speculated that the farmers are biding their time until someone comes along to buy the orchards for a master planned community, which won’t ever happen as long as the people of Southern Arizona do not have good jobs that the mines would provide,” said one real estate expert.