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Sustainable Farming is Being Destroyed to Eradicate E. Coli

sfgate.com — A great story in the SF Chronicle about how major produce buyers are imposing scorched-earth policies on hundreds of thousands of acres where spinach and other leafy greens are grown--in a misguided attempt to eradicate E. Coli. Trees are being bulldozed, animals are being killed, and wastelands of bare dirt are being put in as buffers.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 14, 2009

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  • Judyplap, on 07/14/2009, -1/+29So wrong-headed! So unscientific and unsound. Leave it to Big Ag to come up with a completely ridiculous policy that destroys small-scale farmers, not to mention wildlife and waterways, and pretends its in the name of food safety.
  • inactive, on 07/13/2009, -1/+24High Country News did a story on this a year ago: http://www.hcn.org/issues/371/17714

    While attention to safety is important, the public is not going after the right culprits. Industrial processing is the problem, and this frenzy to sterilize is only the latest incarnation of the current American obsession with safety. You want to eliminate E.coli? Try enforcing OSHA standards governing factory farms and meat-packing plants, let alone tightening them.
  • norman619, on 07/14/2009, -0/+11You can't eradicate E. Coli. It's foolish to aim to eradicate it. They should be trying to find better ways of making sure it does not make it to consumer's dinner plates.
  • WiseWeasel, on 07/14/2009, -1/+11Like having employees at food processing plants use proper hygiene and gowning. Or hell, we could just encourage consumers to WASH THEIR FREAKING VEGGIES BEFORE EATING THEM!!!
  • twiztidsinz, on 07/14/2009, -1/+11DON'T WORRY PEOPLE!!

    The costs will be passed down to you.
    The companies are safe.
  • Scottamus, on 07/14/2009, -0/+9I'm speechless. Reading about people trying to micromanage nature like this just my brain want to implode. Next thing you know they'll be suing the deer.
  • twiztidsinz, on 07/14/2009, -4/+12Why is it that only those who are totally against Obama refer to him as the messiah?
    Maybe if you could make an actual point without RESORTING TO CAPS, swearing and pointing the "you are wrong with the world" finger, people might take you more seriously.. but right now you're just another right wing loon.

    Speaking of lies written in blood... it's sure a good thing we found all them WMDs and terrorists in Iraq to justify the war and all the atrocities that happened in Gitmo.
  • NoTiG, on 07/14/2009, -2/+10whats funny is a few deaths from bacteria can lead to policies like these... but pesticides and herbicides and chemicals in the agricultural process.. which are known to increase cancers and diseases .. are left completely untouched... and the amount of destruction they cause pales in comparison.. not to mention to humans but to all life in general.
  • Thor, on 07/14/2009, -0/+8Its sounds like the industrial food producers are trying to get rid of the family farm.

    Won't all the destruction of trees just increase the amount of top soil being blown away. Here comes the next dust bowl.
  • Nikare, on 07/13/2009, -0/+7best to have my own vegetable and fruit garden.....
  • Bodhinature, on 07/14/2009, -0/+7FTA:

    "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.

    Sustainable Farms are creating a quality product that BigAgro is unwilling to provide. Quick! Regulate them out of the market so we don't have to make a better product!
  • enantiodromia, on 07/14/2009, -0/+6hippies grown their own food, you know, like rednecks used to do a few generations ago...
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -0/+5My veg garden is full of Cow *****, sheep *****, bird *****, bug *****, grey water from the shower so therefore potential for human *****. The cat next door ***** in it, the rats from the sewer at the back race through it, ***** on the way. The slugs and snails ***** on the plants, the dog ***** and pisses on them and I put compost of plant ***** and dog ***** on them all the time.

    I wash them before use and no one has ever been sick, ever.
    America is full of overly vocal whining pussies!
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -3/+8Brief irradiation would destroy a great deal of the e. coli on veggies while leaving no residue and leaving the nutritional components intact. Too bad people are too scared of the word "radiation".
  • Paranor01, on 07/14/2009, -1/+5@ConcernedCanuck: you make me embarrassed to say I'm from Canada. As much as Harper does.
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -1/+4Like it or not, foolish plans such as this one are bringing about the demise of commercial agriculture.
  • WiseWeasel, on 07/14/2009, -1/+4Or just buy local from small producers. My local small grocer has a good selection of local produce, and it tastes much better than the crap at Safeway, even their organic stuff.
  • enantiodromia, on 07/14/2009, -1/+4you mean Mexicans, right?

    just say it.
  • xero69, on 07/14/2009, -0/+3Gee, I wonder if all of this scorched Earth BS has anything to do with the decline in the honeybee population?
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -0/+3@Paranor01: Yes, that is a possibility too. Thorough composting will help because the organism can't survive the intense heat

    @DestroyFascism: Exactly. I think the domain of this problem is strictly within commercial agricultural operations. Home vegetable gardening = WIN.
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -2/+5That's what Faux News wants everybody to believe. The strain of E. Coli in question here lives in the gut of non-grazing cattle, where it is eventually shat (from said cow's ass) and washed away into an irrigation canal. Or directly transmitted by a cattle farm worker who picks up second shifts at the lettuce washing plant down the street.


  • Junkyarddawg, on 07/14/2009, -1/+4@Concernedcanuck: Hey, long time no see. What was your account name before Digg banned you for being a ***** crazy conspiracy-spammer again?
  • ConcernedCanuck, on 07/14/2009, -8/+11WRONG, its to eradicate the middle class.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OIWRHSjfyg
  • enantiodromia, on 07/14/2009, -4/+7@twiz,

    because all these people know is religion, for better or worse, so everything they think about is framed in that context.

    they seem to have conveniently forgotten how Churches around the country were telling their members to vote for W.Bush, less some baby killing DemonCrat become president.
  • twiztidsinz, on 07/14/2009, -4/+6Yeah I don't watch that trash vid, too much tinfoil hattery.. but if I recall.. the first 30 seconds or so has no audio. So much for your "first 4 seconds" thing.

    But do us all a favor... Stay up in Canada.. as far north as you can get.


    TRUTH, LIBERTY,FREEDOM, PEACE, AND LOVE... through delusional paranoia
  • twiztidsinz, on 07/14/2009, -4/+6Sorry.. couldn't see the video over all the anti-Obama annotations.
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2The farm lobby in the US is over the top. Farmers can take a ***** in the woods and its government policy for tax payers to come along, plate that turd in gold and give the farmer a million bucks just for making it.
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2More often than not, it's factory farms who are getting those subsidies. Mom-and-pop farmers are going extinct faster than you can say "dinosaur."
  • Y0tsuya, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2From the article:

    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."
  • stonebear, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2Yes, and lead to higher costs with the need to use double the water because now winds can evaporate it faster. Soon they will use more fertilizer that will wash into rivers killing other food sources in the name of some half wits approach to food safety. Look forward to green dead rivers with bacteria that will eat you inside out and algae (Blue green) that is so toxic it kills everything it touches.

    ***** smart America! Look forward to importing food more and more..
  • 0260, on 07/14/2009, -1/+2Take that, Earth! You ruthless bitch!
  • Scottamus, on 07/14/2009, -1/+2Absolutely. FUD trumps common sense every time.
  • Paranor01, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1I'm thinking it may have adapted to survive from where the ***** lands to it going on as fertilizer. Article didn't mention testing manure fertilizer did it?
  • stonebear, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1Most certainly; as soon as they come into some money. Which, of course; grows ever more dear.
  • nicademus8, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1What a bunch of idiots. E. coli is in your ***** so basically all it takes is one ***** who doesn't wash his hands and poof, ecoli contamination.
  • ThomasDyer, on 07/14/2009, -1/+2Didn't US Congress JUST pass a bill that allowed them to ***** up farms that they believe have E. Coli on them? Sounds like an effort to consolidate food production to me.
  • Paranor01, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1@YogiWanKenobi: I agree that the E.Coli can come from almost anywhere, however a strain may adapt to survive the higher temperatures enough to get from pile to bag to plantings without human intervention.
  • inactive, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1This is insanity! How about dumb ***** Americans try WASHING FOOD before use. There is more ecoli on a door handle at the bank than there is on a salad.

  • Barackalypse, on 07/14/2009, -1/+2Use onizing radiation after packaging to destroy bacteria and parasites:
    http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/DBMD/diseaseinfo/foodirr ...

  • chiddler, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.*

    It's ok i still love you :)
  • norman619, on 07/14/2009, -3/+3The truth hurts doesn't it?
  • Bodhinature, on 07/14/2009, -1/+1If you want to irradiate industrially produced agriculture because they have been so negligent in enforcing food safety standards, be my guest. I'll stick with the locally grown stuff.
  • twiztidsinz, on 07/14/2009, -5/+5Didn't Saddam say he lied about having WMDs to make Iran(?) think twice about attacking?
    It was a fake.. the intelligence said it was fake but Georgie Boy had to finish Daddy's war.

    BTW.. might wanna loosen that tinfoil hat, I think its on too tight and cutting off the circulation to what little brain you have left.
    Though I have to say, I'm not surprised that you're an NWO'er and InsideJob'er.. They seem to skip down Delusional Lane together hand-in-hand.
  • Gumphlumph, on 07/14/2009, -4/+4Actually it's the veg pickers crapping in the fields.
  • Mike17102, on 07/14/2009, -2/+2[citation needed]
  • DeadliestSnatch, on 07/14/2009, -3/+3Are you sure they are not trying to eradicate the hippies?
  • st1710, on 07/14/2009, -1/+0rinsing in clean water with mild detergent eradicates e. coli, as does cooking, or how about vinegar, or salt water. E. coli is hardly some super-disease. It is on your ass and hands every time you go to the *****. Scorched earth. No. Radiation. No. Bit of soapy water. Yes.
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