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<DIV><FONT size=2>An interesting article from today's <EM>San Francisco
Chronicle</EM> about demands for "clean farming" and the impact on environment,
including beneficial insect habitat</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/12/MN0218DVJ8.DTL"><FONT
size=2>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/12/MN0218DVJ8.DTL</FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG>Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food
safety</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class=articleheadings>
<P class=byline><FONT size=2>Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington
Bureau</FONT></P>
<P class=date><FONT size=2>Monday, July 13, 2009</FONT></P></DIV><!--/.articleheadings --><!-- types/article/articletools.tmpl -->
<DIV class="tools tools_top">
<DIV class=hr><FONT size=2><STRONG>(07-13) 04:00 PDT Washington</STRONG> -- 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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=hr> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV id=articlecontent>
<DIV class=clear><FONT size=2></FONT></DIV>
<DIV id=articlebox><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV id=bodytext_bottom class="bodytext bodytext_bottom">
<DIV id=fontprefs_bottom class="georgia md">
<P><FONT size=2>"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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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. </FONT></P>
<H3 class=subhead><FONT size=2>'Foolhardy' approach</FONT></H3>
<P><FONT size=2>"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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<H3 class=subhead><FONT size=2>Going national</FONT></H3>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>The leafy-green agreement is based on available science, but it
is just a jumping-off point. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<H3 class=subhead><FONT size=2>Keeping children out</FONT></H3>
<P><FONT size=2>"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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<H3 class=subhead><FONT size=2>Reducing E. coli</FONT></H3>
<P><FONT size=2>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. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>State agencies responsible for California's water, air and
wildlife have been unable to find out from buyers what they are
demanding.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<H3 class=subhead><FONT size=2>Unscientific approach</FONT></H3>
<P><FONT size=2>"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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<H3 class=subhead><FONT size=2>Turning down clients</FONT></H3>
<P><FONT size=2>"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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Large retailers did not respond to requests for comment. Food
trade groups in Washington suggested calling other trade groups, which didn't
comment.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>"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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>"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." </FONT></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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<DIV><FONT
size=1>______________________________________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG>The Xerces Society for Invertebrate
Conservation</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>The Xerces Society is an international
nonprofit organization that </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>protects wildlife through the conservation of
invertebrates and their </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=1>habitat. </FONT></FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT
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<DIV><FONT size=1></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Matthew Shepherd</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Senior Conservation Associate</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>4828 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR 97215,
USA</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Tel: 503-232 6639 Cell: 503-807 1577 Fax: 503-233
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