crossposted from unbossed
The December 8 Science News includes a troubling story about the future of farming - Lettuce Liability: Programs to keep salads germfree raise wildlife and conservation concerns (Subscription Only).
A new industry program to self-regulate most salad producers is forcing affected farmers to choose between adopting measures unfriendly to wildlife and a loss of major markets for their greens.
Fortunately, although the story is subscription only, the references are open. I have posted them below.
This is an important story about the reaction to the spinach e-coli deaths. That reaction has led to an effort to block anything out of fields that could bear e-coli. I farmers do not comply with the Leafy Green requirements, they will be unable to sell their produce. So farmers must fence and fortify their fields to ensure that no animals can enter.
But, as the story, describes, e-coli can be carried by lots of animals. Even slugs can pick up e-coli as they slime across feces and then can slime into fields. They can shed e-coli for a couple weeks after exposure, and e-coli can live in slug feces for a few weeks.
If slugs, then what about even smaller soil-dwellers? What about rain? What about water percolating through the soil?
Until we have a barrier that can keep out everything living thing, can we feel safe as we go down this path?
The fencing and other requirements, such as destroying hedgerows, meanwhile have bad environmental effects. Though meant to protect us, they destroy wildlife habitat and corridors.
My first reaction to this development was despair. . . on many levels - for food safety, certainly, for the farmers, for the environment. And that this may be a new battleground that provides the opportunity for those who care little for the environment, who care more for profit over the needs of people to make money and eat away at the conditions necessary for our survival. And that we are going down the wrong path.
I worry about us a lot.
I worry about the choices we make and the values we hold that ultimately will harm us.
At first, I thought perhaps the Leafy Green measures were sadly necessary.
But, after some thought, I have came to ask whether this is a solution to the wrong problem.
A solution to the wrong problem?
Remember, it wasn't all spinach or leafy greens that caused the problem. It was bagged spinach. More links here.
So the question is whether our focus should be on the conditions created by bagged greens and not this drastic approach to the farms and farming. If we've gotten it wrong, we destroy something valuable while letting the problem go unsolved. It's like the cops arresting the wrong person - thus stopping the search for the real killer.
So, consider this.
We all carry lots of germs on and in our bodies - including deadly ones - but most of the time we do not get infected. Why? It's a complicated issue, not yet fully understood.
But it appears that conditions have to be right (or actually wrong, depending on the germ's point of view or the infectee's point of view) to let the germs multiple and lower our defenses.
Perhaps the issue is more one of long food supply lines and the long journey from field to truck to warehouse to store to table. Perhaps this e-coli problem results more from the death of local farms and our demand for nonseasonal food. Perhaps the problem stems from our demand for pre-prepared food.
I signed up for a CSA this year - Consumer Supported Agriculture. I was surprised by how good everything tasted - and especially by how long everything lasted. Rather than having a bag of spinach that was going bad when I bought it, my spinach lasted more than a week and was in great condition. I don't know, but I would guess that our greens are probably a week or two old by the time they are in my store. For bagged greens, that means a week or so sitting in a nice humid incubator.
If these are the issues, then the Leafy Green initiative is the wrong way to go and will create enormous harm. And to no good end.
As a service to those who would like to see the sources and be able to dig deeper, here are the Science News story links and references.
- FDA finalizes report on 2006 spinach outbreak. USDA press release. March 23. Available at http://www.fda.gov/...
Cunningham, A. 2006. Salad doubts. Science News 170(Dec. 16):394-396. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
Harder, B. 2004. Swallowed a fly: Insects may spread foodborne microbe to chickens. Science News 166(Aug. 7):85. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
Milius, S. 2007. Not just hitchhikers. Science News 172(Oct. 20):250-252. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
Raloff, J. 2001. Protozoa aid food-poisoning germs. Science News Online (March 18). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 2001. Retail meats host drug-resistant bacteria. Science News 160(Oct. 20):246. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 2001. Germ-fighting germs. Science News Online (Aug. 18). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 2001. Antibiotic resistance is coming to dinner. Science News 159(May 26):325. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 2000. Sickening food. Science News Online (Feb. 12). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 1999. Food poisoning: Sprouts linked to bouts. Science News 155(Jan. 23):63. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
pdfs/data/1999/15504/15504-21.pdf.
____. 1998. Wash-resistant bacteria taint foods. Science News 153(May 30):340. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 1998. Staging germ warfare in foods. Science News 153(Feb. 7):89-90. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
____. 1996. Tracking and tackling foodborne germs. Science News 149(May 25):326. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
Stuart, D., C. Shennan, and M. Brown. 2006. Food safety versus environmental protection on the central California coast: Exploring the science behind an apparent conflict. Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, UCSC. Research Brief #10. Available at http://repositories.cdlib.org/...
Travis, J. 2000. E coli toxin shows its deadly touch. Science News 158(July 22):53. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/...
Sources:
Melanie Beretti
Resource Conservation District of Monterey County
744-A La Guardia Street
Salinas, CA 93905
California Department of Food and Agriculture
1220 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814-5607
California Leafy Green Handler Marketing Board
1521 I Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Web site: http://www.caleafygreens.ca.gov/...
Christina Fischer
Nature Conservancy
99 Pacific Street, Ste. 200 G
Monterey, CA 99940
Jeffery R. Gilles
Lombardo and Gilles
318 Cayuga Street
Salinas, CA 93901
Andrew Gordus
California Department of Fish and Game
1234 East Shaw Avenue
Fresno, CA 93710
Kira Pascoe
Community Alliance with Family Farmers
1735 Woodland Avenue, #51
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Joe Pezzini
Ocean Mist Farms, Inc.
10855 Ocean Mist Parkway
Castroville, CA 95012
Judith Redmond
Full Belly Farm
P.O. Box 251
Guinda, CA 95637
Emma Sproston
Department of Medical Microbiology
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen AB24 3UU
United Kingdom
Trevor Suslow
Plant Sciences/Agronomy Research and Information Center
University of California, Davis
103 Mann Lab
Davis, CA 95616