WASHINGTON - Following recent outbreaks of contaminated produce, two consumer groups Thursday called on the government to require labels that would let food be traced back to the farm where it originated.

The labels would allow regulators to determine where each fruit, vegetable and egg came from even if they are mixed in packages containing produce from other farms.

At a news conference, the Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Science in the Public Interest suggested using numbered codes on stickers, laser printing and even electronic identification tags to show the path the produce took to the consumer, from farm to fork.

Chris Waldrop, director of the Consumer Federation's Food Policy Institute, said many retailers and growers are already using the technology required to implement tracing procedures.

Adam Basford, with the Florida Farm Bureau, said that emergency regulations could be costly to some growers because they would have to attach the label to each item and keep more extensive records.

"The emergency part scares us," Basford said. "We would like sufficient time to conform to those policies."

Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which likely would oversee such a labeling program, were not available for comment Thursday.

There have been 713 outbreaks of food-borne illness since 1990, according to CSPI. Outbreaks linked to produce affect twice as many people as those connected to other foods, Waldrop said.

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