Food safety vs. sustainable agriculture in a scorched-earth battle
Farms are not factories: The always-good Carolyn Lochhead reports on the invisible-to-the-public price that produce farmers — and their farms — are being forced to pay in the name of food safety. "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. 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." (San Francisco Chronicle)
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Comments
By Walter Jeffries on July 13th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
This is a really scary concept. The very fact that they could come up with this sort of absurd idea demonstrates how disconnected these people have become from the real world. Their future is horrid.
By Inoculated Mind on July 14th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Ugh, this doesn't look good at all. The focus should be on risk-management and reduction, not anything and everything that can be done under the sun to alter one variable. The part about the squirrel is just... nuts.
By Mike Anderson on July 18th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Interesting post! Food safety is important, but should be counter-balanced with food availability and affordability. We must consider the impact on local farmers.