wrongheaded approach to crop safety

[Guest guest]

Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safety

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

 

Monday, July 13, 2009

 

 

(07-13) 04:00 PDT 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.

 

 

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.

 

E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

" Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me. "

[Guest guest]



Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables thoroughly before eating them.

 

Talk about overkill though!

 

Jo

 

 

Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safetyCarolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington BureauMonday, July 13, 2009(07-13) 04:00 PDT 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.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 nationalFor 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. coliScientists 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.E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead (AT) sfchronicle (DOT) com."Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me."

[Guest guest]

i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz

"jo.heartwork" Jul 13, 2009 1:01 PM Re: wrongheaded approach to "crop safety"

 

 

 

 Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables thoroughly before eating them.

 

Talk about overkill though!

 

Jo

 

 

Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safetyCarolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington BureauMonday, July 13, 2009(07-13) 04:00 PDT 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.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 nationalFor 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. coliScientists 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.E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead (AT) sfchronicle (DOT) com."Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me."

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me."

[Guest guest]

I don't intend to, but usually I end up dropping my berries or vegs

on the ground and then picking them up and eating them. (But the

ground is mostly mulched, so they don't often fall on the soil,

unless they're strawberries that were growing on top of the soil.)

 

I don't eat the berries that have bird poop on them or the tomatoes

that have been beaked, though.

 

Gotta draw the line somewhere.

 

But the birds that built a nest in my garden get to have all the

strawberries, because they get them first anyway and because I don't

want to disturb the babies.

 

 

At 2:48 PM -0400 7/13/09, fraggle wrote:

i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz

 

 

" jo.heartwork "

?

Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables

thoroughly before eating them.

 

Talk about overkill though!

[Guest guest]

I expect the baby birds will be on their ways soon - will you still have

strawberries left for you?

 

Jo

 

, yarrow wrote:

>

> I don't intend to, but usually I end up dropping my berries or vegs

> on the ground and then picking them up and eating them. (But the

> ground is mostly mulched, so they don't often fall on the soil,

> unless they're strawberries that were growing on top of the soil.)

>

> I don't eat the berries that have bird poop on them or the tomatoes

> that have been beaked, though.

>

> Gotta draw the line somewhere.

>

> But the birds that built a nest in my garden get to have all the

> strawberries, because they get them first anyway and because I don't

> want to disturb the babies.

>

>

> At 2:48 PM -0400 7/13/09, fraggle wrote:

> i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz

>

>

> " jo.heartwork "

> ?

> Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables

> thoroughly before eating them.

>

> Talk about overkill though!

>

[Guest guest]

I'm guessing another 7-10 days for the babies in the nest, then 6

days out of the nest before they learn to fly (during which I'll be

watering very carefully, watching where I step, and keeping an eye

out for jays and crows!), then another 3 weeks or so before the

babies venture away from the parents' territory.

 

I usually have strawberries from spring to fall, so as long as I can

keep them watered they should be fine.

 

Watching the tiny newborn birds in the nest, it's a miracle that any

birds survive to adulthood in the wild!

 

 

At 6:40 AM +0000 7/14/09, heartwerk wrote:

>I expect the baby birds will be on their ways soon - will you still

>have strawberries left for you?

>

>Jo

>

> , yarrow wrote:

>>

>> I don't intend to, but usually I end up dropping my berries or vegs

>> on the ground and then picking them up and eating them. (But the

>> ground is mostly mulched, so they don't often fall on the soil,

>> unless they're strawberries that were growing on top of the soil.)

>>

>> I don't eat the berries that have bird poop on them or the tomatoes

>> that have been beaked, though.

>>

>> Gotta draw the line somewhere.

>>

>> But the birds that built a nest in my garden get to have all the

>> strawberries, because they get them first anyway and because I don't

>> want to disturb the babies.

>>

>>

>> At 2:48 PM -0400 7/13/09, fraggle wrote:

>> i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz

>>

>>

>> " jo.heartwork "

>> ?

>> Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables

>> thoroughly before eating them.

>>

>> Talk about overkill though!

>>

>

>

>

>

>---

>

>To send an email to

>-! Groups Links

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

squirrel nibbled fruit/veggies, and any plums on the ground are out for me

anything else is fair game...unless of course it has something OBVIOUSLY "dirty" about it. bird poo, or some other animals little leavings., covered in soil, etc. then they get washed. otherwse, i tend to snack a lot as a garden.

1 for the basket, 1 for me, 2 for basket, 1, 2 for me....

yarrow Jul 13, 2009 10:32 PM Re: wrongheaded approach to "crop safety"

 

 

 

I don't intend to, but usually I end up dropping my berries or vegs on the ground and then picking them up and eating them. (But the ground is mostly mulched, so they don't often fall on the soil, unless they're strawberries that were growing on top of the soil.)I don't eat the berries that have bird poop on them or the tomatoes that have been beaked, though.Gotta draw the line somewhere.But the birds that built a nest in my garden get to have all the strawberries, because they get them first anyway and because I don't want to disturb the babies.At 2:48 PM -0400 7/13/09, fraggle wrote:i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz"jo.heartwork"?Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables thoroughly before eating them.Talk about overkill though!

 

 

 

 

 

"Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me."

[Guest guest]

what kinda birds are they?

my wild strawberries never produced this year. i assume its because they have been over taken by the ferns and the rapidly growing walnut sapling and just don't like all the shade.

the strawberries in the half barrel are producing fruit, but its odd and mealy/mushy. i think they have verticulum wilt

*sigh*

yarrow Jul 14, 2009 4:03 AM Re: wrongheaded approach to "crop safety"

 

 

 

I'm guessing another 7-10 days for the babies in the nest, then 6 days out of the nest before they learn to fly (during which I'll be watering very carefully, watching where I step, and keeping an eye out for jays and crows!), then another 3 weeks or so before the babies venture away from the parents' territory.I usually have strawberries from spring to fall, so as long as I can keep them watered they should be fine.Watching the tiny newborn birds in the nest, it's a miracle that any birds survive to adulthood in the wild!At 6:40 AM +0000 7/14/09, heartwerk wrote:>I expect the baby birds will be on their ways soon - will you still >have strawberries left for you?>>Jo>> , yarrow wrote:>>>> I don't intend to, but usually I end up dropping my berries or vegs>> on the ground and then picking them up and eating them. (But the>> ground is mostly mulched, so they don't often fall on the soil,>> unless they're strawberries that were growing on top of the soil.)>>>> I don't eat the berries that have bird poop on them or the tomatoes>> that have been beaked, though.>>>> Gotta draw the line somewhere.>>>> But the birds that built a nest in my garden get to have all the>> strawberries, because they get them first anyway and because I don't>> want to disturb the babies.>>>>>> At 2:48 PM -0400 7/13/09, fraggle wrote:>> i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz>>>> >> "jo.heartwork">> ?>> Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables>> thoroughly before eating them.>>>> Talk about overkill though!>>>>>>>--->>To send an email to >-

[Guest guest]

Spotted towhees (used to be called rufous-sided towhees). Very

pretty bird.

 

The week before they built the nest, they had lots of fun kicking

the compost away from the tomato plants.

 

Before that, I never saw them in my garden, though I saw one or

two in the area.

 

At 12:04 PM -0400 7/14/09, fraggle wrote:

what kinda birds are they?

[Guest guest]

ah...

i've laways had issues with the california towhees.

everyplace i've lived for years has a resident population, and they LOVE to dig up seedlings they still love to go after any pea seedlings.

lil buggers

yarrow Jul 14, 2009 2:41 PM Re: Re: wrongheaded approach to "crop safety"

 

 

 

 

Spotted towhees (used to be called rufous-sided towhees). Very pretty bird.

 

The week before they built the nest, they had lots of fun kicking the compost away from the tomato plants.

 

Before that, I never saw them in my garden, though I saw one or two in the area.

 

At 12:04 PM -0400 7/14/09, fraggle wrote:

what kinda birds are they?

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me."

[Guest guest]

That's good. In one way it's nice to know they are enjoying them, but good that

you will have some to yourself afterwards.

 

Jo

 

, yarrow wrote:

>

> I'm guessing another 7-10 days for the babies in the nest, then 6

> days out of the nest before they learn to fly (during which I'll be

> watering very carefully, watching where I step, and keeping an eye

> out for jays and crows!), then another 3 weeks or so before the

> babies venture away from the parents' territory.

>

> I usually have strawberries from spring to fall, so as long as I can

> keep them watered they should be fine.

>

> Watching the tiny newborn birds in the nest, it's a miracle that any

> birds survive to adulthood in the wild!

>

>

> At 6:40 AM +0000 7/14/09, heartwerk wrote:

> >I expect the baby birds will be on their ways soon - will you still

> >have strawberries left for you?

> >

> >Jo

> >

> > , yarrow@ wrote:

> >>

> >> I don't intend to, but usually I end up dropping my berries or vegs

> >> on the ground and then picking them up and eating them. (But the

> >> ground is mostly mulched, so they don't often fall on the soil,

> >> unless they're strawberries that were growing on top of the soil.)

> >>

> >> I don't eat the berries that have bird poop on them or the tomatoes

> >> that have been beaked, though.

> >>

> >> Gotta draw the line somewhere.

> >>

> >> But the birds that built a nest in my garden get to have all the

> >> strawberries, because they get them first anyway and because I don't

> >> want to disturb the babies.

> >>

> >>

> >> At 2:48 PM -0400 7/13/09, fraggle wrote:

> >> i like to rub a little extra dirt on them, just cuz

> >>

> >>

> >> " jo.heartwork "

> >> ?

> >> Sounds like a really, really good reason to wash your vegetables

> >> thoroughly before eating them.

> >>

> >> Talk about overkill though!

> >>

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >---

> >

> >To send an email to

> >-! Groups Links

> >

> >

> >

>