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TechnoratiCrops, Ponds Destroyed in Quest for Food Safety
WASHINGTON - Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.
![[Farmworkers harvest romaine lettuce to be shipped directly to market at Lakeside Organic Gardens Farm in Watsonville. (Paul Chinn / The Chronicle)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/crops-2.jpg "crops-2.jpg")
He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety,
because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No
vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.
"I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop," he said. "On one field where a deer walked through, didn't eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop."
In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world's biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national.
Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare - spinach, peppers and now cookie dough - ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer - and anything that shelters them - are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria.
In pending legislation and in proposed federal regulations, the push for food safety butts up against the movement toward biologically diverse farming methods, while evidence suggests that industrial agriculture may be the bigger culprit.
'Foolhardy' approach
"Sanitizing American agriculture, aside from being impossible, is foolhardy," said UC Berkeley food guru Michael Pollan, who most recently made his case for smaller-scale farming in the documentary film "Food, Inc." "You have to think about what's the logical end point of looking at food this way. It's food grown indoors hydroponically."
Scientists do not know how the killer E. coli pathogen, which dwells mainly in the guts of cattle, made its way to a spinach field near San Juan Bautista (San Benito County) in 2006, leaving four people dead, 35 with acute kidney failure and 103 hospitalized.
The deadly bug first appeared in hamburger meat in the early 1980s and migrated to certain kinds of produce, mainly lettuce and other leafy greens that are cut, mixed and bagged for the convenience of supermarket shoppers. Hundreds of thousands of the bug can fit on the head of a pin; as few as 10 can lodge in a salad and end in lifelong disability, including organ failure.
Going national
For many giant food retailers, the choice between a dead pond and a dead child is no choice at all. Industry has paid more than $100 million in court settlements and verdicts in spinach and lettuce lawsuits, a fraction of the lost sales involved.
Galvanized by the spinach disaster, large growers instituted a quasi-governmental program of new protocols for growing greens safely, called the "leafy greens marketing agreement." A proposal was submitted last month in Washington to take these rules nationwide.
A food safety bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, passed this month in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It would give new powers to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate all farms and produce in an attempt to fix the problem. The bill would require consideration of farm diversity and environmental rules, but would leave much to the FDA.
An Amish farmer in Ohio who uses horses to plow his fields could find himself caught in a net aimed 2,000 miles away at a feral pig in San Benito County. While he may pick, pack and sell his greens in one day because he does not refrigerate, the bagged lettuce trucked from Salinas with a 17-day shelf life may be considered safer.
The leafy-green agreement is based on available science, but it is just a jumping-off point.
Large produce buyers have compiled secret "super metrics" that go much further. Farmers must follow them if they expect to sell their crops. These can include vast bare-dirt buffers, elimination of wildlife, and strict rules on water sources. To enforce these rules, retail buyers have sent forth armies of food-safety auditors, many of them trained in indoor processing plants, to inspect fields.
Keeping children out
"They're used to working inside the factory walls," said Ken Kimes, owner of New Natives farms in Aptos (Santa Cruz County) and a board member of the Community Alliance With Family Farmers, a California group. "If they're not prepared for the farm landscape, it can come as quite a shock to them. Some of this stuff that they want, you just can't actually do."
Auditors have told Kimes that no children younger than 5 can be allowed on his farm for fear of diapers. He has been asked to issue identification badges to all visitors.
Not only do the rules conflict with organic and environmental standards; many are simply unscientific. Surprisingly little is known about how E. coli is transmitted from cow to table.
Reducing E. coli
Scientists have created a vaccine to reduce E. coli in livestock, and a White House working group announced plans Tuesday to boost safety standards for eggs and meat. This month, the group is expected to issue draft guidelines for reducing E. coli contamination in leafy greens, tomatoes and melons.
Some science suggests that removing vegetation near field crops could make food less safe. Vegetation and wetlands are a landscape's lungs and kidneys, filtering out not just fertilizers, sediments and pesticides, but also pathogens. UC Davis scientists found that vegetation buffers can remove as much as 98 percent of E. coli from surface water. UC Davis advisers warn that some rodents prefer cleared areas.
Produce buyers compete to demand the most draconian standards, said Jo Ann Baumgartner, head of the Wild Farm Alliance in Watsonville, so that they can sell their products as the "safest."
State agencies responsible for California's water, air and wildlife have been unable to find out from buyers what they are demanding.
They do know that trees have been bulldozed along the riparian corridors of the Salinas Valley, while poison-filled tubes targeting rodents dot lettuce fields. Dying rodents have led to deaths of owls and hawks that naturally control rodents.
Unscientific approach
"It's all based on panic and fear, and the science is not there," said Dr. Andy Gordus, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game.
Preliminary results released in April from a two-year study by the state wildlife agency, UC Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that less than one-half of 1 percent of 866 wild animals tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 in Central California.
Frogs are unrelated to E. coli, but their remains in bags of mechanically harvested greens are unsightly, Gordus said, so "the industry has been using food safety as a premise to eliminate frogs."
Farmers are told that ponds used to recycle irrigation water are unsafe. So they bulldoze the ponds and pump more groundwater, opening more of the aquifer to saltwater intrusion, said Jill Wilson, an environmental scientist at the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Luis Obispo.
Wilson said demands for 450-foot dirt buffers remove the agency's chief means of preventing pollution from entering streams and rivers. Jovita Pajarillo, associate director of the water division in the San Francisco office of the Environmental Protection Agency, said removal of vegetative buffers threatens Arroyo Seco, one of the last remaining stretches of habitat for steelhead trout.
Turning down clients
"It's been a problem for us trying to balance the organic growing methods with the food safety requirements," Peixoto said. "At some point, we can't really meet their criteria. We just tell them that's all we can do, and we have to turn down that customer."
Large retailers did not respond to requests for comment. Food trade groups in Washington suggested calling other trade groups, which didn't comment.
Chiquita/Fresh Express, a large Salinas produce handler, told the advocacy group Food and Water Watch that the company has "developed extensive additional guidelines for the procurement of leafy greens and other produce, but we consider such guidelines to be our confidential and proprietary information."
Seattle trial lawyer Bill Marler, who represented many of the plaintiffs in the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach, said, "If we want to have bagged spinach and lettuce available 24/7, 12 months of the year, it comes with costs."
Still, he said, the industry rules won't stop lawsuits or eliminate the risk of processed greens cut in fields, mingled in large baths, put in bags that must be chilled from packing plant to kitchen, and shipped thousands of miles away.
"In 16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, I can tell you I've never had a case where it's been linked to a farmers' market," Marler said.
"Could it happen? Absolutely. But the big problem has been the mass-produced product. What you're seeing is this rub between trying to make it as clean as possible so they don't poison anybody, but still not wanting to come to the reality that it may be the industrialized process that's making it all so risky."
Some major recent outbreaks of food-borne illness
The Food and Drug Administration lists 40 food-borne pathogens. Among the more common: E-coli O157:H7, salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, botulism and hepatitis A.
June 2009: E. coli O157:H7 found in Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough manufactured in Danville, Va., resulted in the recall of 3.6 million packages. Seventy-two people in 30 states were sickened. No traces found on equipment or workers; investigators are looking at flour and other ingredients.
October 2008: Salmonella found in peanut butter from a Peanut Corp. of America plant in Georgia. Nine people died, and an estimated 22,500 were sickened. Criminal negligence was alleged after the product tested positive and was shipped.
June 2008: Salmonella Saintpaul traced to serrano peppers grown in Mexico. More than 1,000 people were sickened in 41 states, with 203 reported hospitalizations and at least one death. Tomatoes were suspected, devastating growers.
April 2007: E. coli O157:H7 found in beef, sickening 14 people. United Food Group recalled 5.7 million pounds of meat.
December 2006: E. coli O157:H7 traced to Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey and Long Island, N.Y. Green onions suspected, then lettuce. Thirty-nine people were sickened, some with acute kidney failure.
September 2006: E. coli O157:H7 found in Dole bagged spinach processed at Earthbound Farms in San Juan Bautista (San Benito County). The outbreak killed four people, sent 103 to hospitals, and devastated the spinach industry.
43 Comments so far
Show Allcan you imagine a world without money ?
If we build "CITIZEN CENTRAL" we can solve this problem of insane agribusiness!
All interesting comments above while showing an intensity of interest that is both wide and natural.
From the article:
"Preliminary results released in April from a two-year study by the state wildlife agency, UC Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that less than one-half of 1 percent of 866 wild animals tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 in Central California."
Okay, now let's run the same tests on 866 randomly picked Central California farmworkers and test their shit for E. coli 0157:H7 and compare the results. Then let's do an anthropological study of the shitting habits of farm workers who spend all day in the hot sun in rows of vegetables and fruits. Then there needs to be a study of what happens to the portoilets and their contents.
MiniTrue, above, remarks in very salient part:
"Seventy years ago, we played outside, in the dirt. We drank from water hoses, we chewed road tar. If we dropped a sandwich or candy bar, we wiped off the dirt and finished eating it. We shared sandwiches, ice cream cones and candy bars. If we got a cut or scrape, we wiped it off and went on playing. Stepping barefoot into a warm cow pie was fun! We pulled carrots and radishes, wiped the dirt off on our pants and ate them.
"I could go on, but I imagine most of the young mommy's and daddy's are about to faint or vomit. The point is, we all generated immune systems that would deflect an RPG. We seldom got sick except for the usual childhood diseases. We got strong and tough from play and exercise. Most of us got jobs to earn our allowances or to make money for the movies or to buy a bike."
15 years or so later than he did, I also experienced that "lifestyle," except that I never tried tasting road tar and I never stepped in a cowpie, except accidentally and with shoes on!
For now decades, on and off, I have studied and reflected on how Americans approach the entire body of EXCREMENT. We A-void it. We don't want to talk about it. We don't even want to think about it. Our sewer systems, such as they are, are a study in how to poison a planet by chlorinating it (or, more broadly, by halogenating it). Big Ag now seems intent on this urban model imposed on agriculture. We need to re-orient what we mean by "public health."
Meanwhile, anyone wishing to delve more deeply into the psychology of American Midwestern agriculture would not be harmed by reading some Wendell Berry.
I'd be watching California right now, with a view to Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, which book has given Wall Street a New Mantra. Give me that State debt figure again; did I hear $74 BILLION and counting? I guess they gotta kill off the salmon-ella, eh?! To say nothing of the Pandemic H1N1.
As goes California, so goes the nation... Har Har. Where's the spittoon? Lately, I've eaten a lot of ripe bananas from places like Costa Rico, but it's been years since I ate anything from California unless it was accidentally cottage cheese from their happy cows. In the American Midwest I have my own fruit trees and grapes, etc., although this year all the fruit is dropping off the trees! Anyone paying attention to the ozone hole these days?
If Global Warming is about to become as bad as Disaster Theorists say, then we better start up Communications Systems by multiple means... If our government continues to refuse to help the Common Man (and woman) then we need to destroy that
Government. There exist mechanisms for doing this. And they do not necessarily require taking steroids.
-30-
These rules were never intended to safeguard the consumer. The purpose is to "restore consumer confidence" in the industrial food supply.
Think about it! Remove the vegetation around a field of - vegetation! Yup, growing crops are vegetation. Animals can hide in this vegetation.
According to this type of logic, we should remove the crops from the crop field.
Big farmers have no choice but to sell to big packers. So if you're buying the nationwide brands, organic or conventional, this is the kind of protection you are getting. Pure idiocy disguised as concern for consumers.
Find a local farmer who sells at a farmers market, farm stand or CSA. They will allow you on their farms to see what they do. Even your diapered babies. They have no "proprietary" methods that they won't tell you about.
Like the spinach grower at the farmers market cited earlier, they will talk to you and show you their methods and reasons.
Good farming is not a secret. It's pretty darned simple - not easy, but simple. Spend a little of your time and a few extra pennies and buy direct from local farmers you know and trust. Good small farmers deserve to make a decent living without resorting to the "get big or get out" mantra promoted by the corporate food system.
I know there aren't many choices in some areas. But buying what you can locally is the only way to encourage more small farmers to return to growing crops for local markets.
Don't make excuses! The life you save may be your kid's!
Absolute proof that the managers of "Factory farms R Us" are clueless or could not care less as to the real problems. These "rules" sound as if they were written by corporate lawyers. A sure sign that they are both wrong and malevolent in intent.
Thank all commenters above, and most particularly Nedlud and Minitrue. You understand the problem. There is much wrong with agriculture here, and almost all of it is from Giganticus Corporatus Amerikus. I happen to be a small farmer and private researcher into improving production methodologies and the economics of small holding production, I fund it with my money. I can say unequivocally that if this is passed in it's appearent form, and is enforced (I don't see how it could be) ---- as it will become illegal to grow basil in a windowsill pot), the subsistence grower who feeds his own family will become a criminal. This is sheer madness ---- policy made by those who live a high-rise lifestyle and think food comes from the supermarket.
True --- factory farming corporations will buy this into law if they can. I have lost ALL faith in congress to protect us from anything. I am almost 70 years old too, Minitrue. I have decendants ---- 2 generations of them---- God help them --- This F()(king country's leadership has lost it's collective mind about most things---- this one more than most.
Ecoli is a consequence of feeding cows corn, which they can not properly digest , then packing the cattle into a feedlot wherein they are forced to sleep in their own offal.
My grandparents grw up eating vegetables from the garden and the beefo pork and poultry they raised on the farm as did my parents, as did myself.
We never HEARD of Ecoli. I can not recall a single person getting ill with it.
Until the insane factory farms and the agribusinesses who NO DOUBT will see special legislation passed in their favor so as to ensure "The Food Supply is kept safe".
A lot of people do not wash their produce. I think industrial farming is nasty and dirty. That is why the meat companies are moving to Mexico. Out of sight is out of mind.
The quality is really lousy in the stores-another we pay more and get less in return.
I buy my stuff local mostly. I do not buy or eat a lot of meat. I would not dare.
Unatural conditions and huge volume are causing disease to get out of control.
As Monsanto and others use whatever devious means to gain total control of the food supply, they will deal a death blow to family farmers, real organic methods and even the backyard garden.
Fear is a potent weapon and has been used by every major corporation or industry group to gain full control, including the military industrial complex, the energy industry, the health care industry, and now the food supply.
Freedom will soon be an illusion as unattainable as that portrayed in the move "The Matrix".
And at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist or paranoid one has to wonder if the recent e coli outbreaks were not "intentional".
Beyond the fact that this nation has gone completely insane, I think that more than half the problem is that today, kids don't have a chance to build up an immune system. Mommy follows them around with sterile wipes and every time the kid touches something or pets an animal, Mommy is there telling him he shouldn't touch, while whipping out a sterile wipe or three and scrubbing all of his exposed body.
Seventy years ago, we played outside, in the dirt. We drank from water hoses, we chewed road tar. If we dropped a sandwich or candy bar, we wiped off the dirt and finished eating it. We shared sandwiches, ice cream cones and candy bars. If we got a cut or scrape, we wiped it off and went on playing. Stepping barefoot into a warm cow pie was fun! We pulled carrots and radishes, wiped the dirt off on our pants and ate them.
I could go on, but I imagine most of the young mommy's and daddy's are about to faint or vomit. The point is, we all generated immune systems that would deflect an RPG. We seldom got sick except for the usual childhood diseases. We got strong and tough from play and exercise. Most of us got jobs to earn our allowances or to make money for the movies or to buy a bike.
If you fell out of a tree, you didn't go to the hospital while your parents headed for the nearest attorney, unless something was obviously broken. You probably got your butt warmed for being careless. Nobody went out looking for a neighbor to sue.
Nowadays, everybody is "protected" and "sanitized" to the point that, if somebody runs into a bug, it may well lay his ass out! Let's try living on planet earth, not in a sterile bubble. If a deer comes through the field, admire its beauty and hope it doesn't eat too many of the roses when it gets to the house.
Ponds have things in them. We used to catch frogs. We used to get very muddy. When we got home, Mom would get quite angry at us if she had to wash our clothes, again! They were clean this morning. Maybe we had to take a bath, but usually we just washed out hands and sat down to lunch. Then we went out to play again.
I don't think I'd have made my seventies, nor would my wife, had we lived in a modern, sterilized world, nor would we have had nearly as much fun.
So leave the farmers alone! Leave the wild life alone! Renew your contact with Mother Earth and you'll get along just fine.
Nicely said. A lot of wisdom here.
When will the public ever learn that E.coli is caused by cruelly stuffing our animals with GMO corn ? Before agriculture went whole sale volume sale, meat and diary came from pasture raised animals. Yes, supplies were limited but getting them local couldn't be any easier. What does this have to do with the E.coli today? Well, it spreads and this is what we get. It's time to reign in Big Agri subsidization and give us back our small family farms. That alone will stop these outbreaks. I might have been working in agriculture for a living if I hadn't had to witness the farm crisis in the 1980s in my childhood years followed by small farms getting wiped out in the last two decades. How can we have a truly free market when Big Agri gets to wipe out the competition and cause all the trouble while small farmers are locked out to poverty ?
You know, you could have just said 'corn' instead of "GMO corn." Corn and cattle are not a perfect combination, but they make the meat taste good. I'm a meat-eater, but I'm eating less of it and less beef, which is an expensive and inappropriate food choice for the World.
Greg, you're correct. God never intended these animals to be cruelly stuffed with corn feed just to pump up the volume sales.
I've never had grass-fed beef so I don't know the difference, but I can't imagine I'd be turned off by the taste...I prefer my steaks and burgers well-seasoned and with a nice dose of sauce. I probably wouldn't notice.
I don't have to even read this fucking article, I can just scan the comments. You know what? I get shit on me every god-damn day from being with my cows. They have some shit on their tails sometimes and oh-my-god they sometimes have a little shit right below their buttholes. And I haven't been sick (with a cold or a flu) to the point where I've had to lay in bed for years!!
On the other hand, this country makes me so sick, sad and depressed I don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning. I have to drag myself through the day, where there used to be so much joy. So much joy....
God damn you, Amerika.
GOD DAMN YOU.
(hope you catch a shower tomorrow, looks like 2 weeks dry weather after that)
Thanks Greg R, I know you know me now. Yeah we really need a good soaker....
Are you in reality Obama's ex-minister? Just kidding. Hang in there. If need be, you can learn to enjoy other things than just dairy farming. There always has and always will be lots of shit in the world, and I ain't talking manure.
Are you familiar with Joel Salatin?
'Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal'.
After dairying, I intend to raise a big stink. I'm working on it now.
I don't quite understand how life should be allowed to be made illegal. So I am going to go make a stink about it. Wake some dead.
Wish me luck.
July 2009: CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois-based meat company E.S. Miller Packing Co was recalling about 219 lbs of ground beef products amid concerns it could be contaminated with E.coli 0157:H7 bacteria, USDA said in statement on Monday (today).
Glad I quit eating beef six years ago. After Bush fired half of, and handcuffed all the remaining USDA inspectors as a "favor" to Texas ranching, My Gout has gotten way better, my stools are making classical movements, and overall health is far better. Before that, I used to get sicker than hell eating fast food beef like In and OUt, McDucks, etc.
Domestic Bovine did not evolve as carnivores. But that's what Big Ag is feeding them: recycled nervous systems, bones, everything goes in the grinder.
These cows are now Cannibals! And sometimes when cannibals eat brains or spines they die. (BSE: aka Mad Cow Disease) Kind of a Herbivore Herd evolutionary protection mechanism. But now when the cannibal cow starts getting sick..... He Gets ANTIBIOTICS! Hurray! Big Pharma to the Wall street/Big Agribusiness Rescue!
That nice juicy steak is going to kill you one way or another!
(better check the new high tide tables when you're sitting at the Outback table)
Blub Blub Blub.....
Bon Appetite,
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
My son-in-law, still in his 30s, was recently diagnosed with gout. I did a little studying on this, as I'm sure you have, but diet and avoiding stress are most important (I was a little worried by all your exclamation marks). Try to stay relaxed while you're giving whoever hell.
Fair enough Greg,
Sorry I targeted you. It was for educational purposes only. And sorry to hear about your Son's gout. There are worse pains in this world, but right now I really can't remember any that bad....
Ben Franklin had gout. And even way back then, he knew it was diet and lack of exercise. "If only I had spent time walking in the garden instead of playing chess". It was known as the rich man's disease. Physiologically, doctors still cannot explain why the uric acid misregulation happens. But you are right, fat, beef, possibly excessive alcohol all are prime suspects.
And the stress of the Federal Government to be sure! ;-)
Read "the Biotech Century" by Jerrimy Rifkin 2000, and you won't want these Chromosome damaging products (by their own tests) anywhere near you.
Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (sorry, I'm better now)
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
I have had gout several times too...I doubt there is any worse pain, or at least I've never had any so bad.
Thankfully I have a supply of an anti-inflammatory prescription that clears it up in no time if I ever have it again. And now that I'm eating way better, getting some exercise, and losing weight, I haven't had it in quite a while.
Good for you zmann,
I'll bet you 90% of the stuff on the shelf is not gout-friendly. It was a real struggle for me to go cold turkey and eat only fruits and veggies with a little chicken and fish. Even today, I have trouble walking by my old snacks like chips without my hand extending automatically to the junk food laced with fat.
Thank God for Ralph Nader who forced the gov with his hot crusaders to label food ingredients.
As you probably know, gout damage to the cartilage is permanent and my dad had to have his toe cut off. So it's hereditary as well.
Good Luck you cripples!
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Industrial monoculture at its worst, powered by convenience. There is no free lunch.
History will show it was Agri-business (Corporate farming) that destroyed the human race as a result of killing natural predators, insects and bio-engineering to make the "product" better and more appetizing. There is no such thing as a disease resistant food but as they are doing this, destroying the natural food, it is easier for a disease or insect to wipe out entire food sources globally.This belief that scientists are smarter than mother nature has proven itself to be false. The corporations controlling food sources seem to be confused with organic, natural small farming history and actions versus Monsanto, Dupont and one or two other giants producing great looking products with no flavor and filled with drugs and genetic engineering never approved for human consumption. As we live longer, we are not living better and history will prove this out. They are killing us as they kill off the mom and pop farms and ranches, co-ops and farmers markets. These diseases are the result of corporate greed.
Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749
"A food safety bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, passed this month in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It would give new powers to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate all farms and produce in an attempt to fix the problem. The bill would require consideration of farm diversity and environmental rules, but would leave much to the FDA."
Attention needs to be paid to this bill, HR 2749.
Please read in more detail about this at:
http://farmwars.info/?p=1145.
The ramifications of this bill, were it to pass, are huge.
Wow, this is really insane! First Waxman comes up with that joke of a climate change bill, now this! He's not trying to save the planet, he's trying to destroy it!
This makes me so angry. I keep emailing my Congressman, Senators, the President, and even the EPA, but I don't think it's doing any good.
this is what happens when you give big agra the power to define 'organic'.... when that spinach ecoli furor was going on a few years back, the poor farmer in the booth next to mine at the farmer's market had to explain at least a hundred times over the next months to ignorant customers that, no, HIS spinach was not going to kill them with ecoli...... he was diplomatic enough not to spew angrily to them that it was a very large and well-known company whose spinach had been the culprit. that's the problem with people's disconnect from their food (and big agra is more than happy to keep folks in the dark---read EATING IN THE DARK by hart for a whiff of what stinks in big corn!)) ----they wind up overreacting and ultimately penalizing hardworking farmers who do their best to get wholesome foods out to us and believing the greenwashed pr put out by the "experts" of the fda or monsanto or adm or cargill since their only reference point for food 'expertise' is tied up in some feel-good logo or commercial they've seen on their tv. if people actually planted and cared for seeds now and then, or ever took the trouble to visit and compare a small, local farm with a huge industrial 'farm', they'd have some inkling of why localizing our food economies is in everyone's best interest.
Regarding the spinach: This author could be deaf, dumb and blind. Seems to me I read in more than one place that the E.Coli came from a cattle CAFO about a mile upstream. They tried to blame it on feral pigs.
i was referring to the 2006 outbreak that was traced to 13 pkgs of dole spinach.... not the first or last outbreak, but the one that caused an uproar that summer.
Why are we destroying perfectly good food, when there are so many hungry?
"Pass the word, save yourself and kill the world."
- Lemmy
All of the cases cited are industrial scale mass market profit based operations.
Clearly, they are not yet big and pure enough to be immortal.
So much of our food comes from other countries with no controls.
The US seems to have no controls but this is ridiculous. I'll skip the meat if the farmers will just skip the E. coli, poisons and frankenfood.
First off, you want nutrients cycling in a healthy environment. That means that for a farm to be healthy (and ever hope to attain true sustainability), wildlife will have to be able to move through to allow the cycling of key nutrients. And this is no small potatoes, either. Northeastern North America lost it's phosphorus transport system that spread 3 billion kg of phosphorus in 57 billion kg deposited yearly when the passenger pigeon was killed off in a fit of rigorously applied stupidity.
Secondly, if you are a farmer (or selling anything for that matter), you are making a grave mistake if you sell to crappy customers like the large supermarket chains listed in this article. Don't be dictated a price like ADM or others will do to you. And don't waste your time with customers who make unreasonable demands.
Let's call this what it is: a brazen attempt by industrial producers to destroy the organic food movement. As the article suggests, well-paid members of Congress are using the fear and ignorance of the American public to eliminate a growing sector of the food economy which threatens the profits of the factory farmers.
When I first started to read this article, I honestly felt that I was still asleep and that this could not possibly be true. What this article describes is sheer insanity.
As usual, Greed triumphs over all.
q
Agreed. Crazy as hell.
Deer criss-cross my fields every day. I'm sure glad I'm not organic. Having bare ground around your field is assinine. The dirt will slowly wash away. A bird's feet could have something bad on it also. Hey, I know, let's kill all the wildlife.
Thank God I don't eat any food from your fields Greg. It appears you not only don't comprehend English, but that you think soaking everything with Monsanto and Dow Chemicals and deadly GMO seeds is the way to feed people. Maybe it feeds your bank account, but it has nothing to do with sustainable farming.
Here is just one more case of incompetent Big Federal Government destroying the lives of it's citizens. Waxman knows nothing about farming, therefore his is unqualified to make legislation on it.
Unlike Waxman, Thomas Jefferson was a farmer and understood well how to employ organic farming. His garden was surrounded by vegetation: Forests. His land at Montecello was not very fertile since it was on the top of a ridge. He had to become an expert at methods of fertilization.
This is the kind of politician I want making my food laws: A small farmer, not a clueless Big "Agricat" from DC.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
The article describes what Big Ag is doing with their conventional crops . . . NOT, what organic farmers are doing.
All those quoted in the article disputing the new methods imposed by "large produce buyers" are defenders of organic agriculture methods. The conclusion: "Not only do the rules conflict with ORGANIC and environmental standards; many are simply unscientific."
It's unfortunate that the author uses the experience of an organic farmer in her opening paragraphs to reveal the issue -- apparently in an attempt to illustrate it's absurdity -- and then fails to clarify that food safety problems are almost entirely the province of monoculture and factory-farmed foods.
As Seattle trial lawyer Bill Marler says, "In 16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, I can tell you I've never had a case where it's been linked to a farmers' market."