The owners of the Paicines Ranch, which has reportedly been under investigation as a potential source of the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak traced to contaminated spinach, issued a statement about reports of its involvement.

The owners told KSBW: " The Paicines Ranch is not under investigation by any government agency. We lease row crop land to farmers. Whether or not these farmers are under investigation is unknown to us. If you want to know whether a particular farmer is under investigation, you should ask them. Since we neither farm nor process row crops of any kind, we are unable to comment further.”