California Farms Get Testy Over Water Quality

The world's most pervasive groundwater pollution problem - nitrate in drinking water - is under scrutiny in the richest farming region of the United States.

This week, a report for the California Legislature revealed that 250,000 people living in Central California, including four of the top five agricultural counties in the U.S., are currently at risk for nitrate contamination in their drinking water. Many of them are among the poorest Californians.

Nitrate, in this instance, is a byproduct of nitrogen fertilizer. In drinking water, high concentrations of it can interfere with the oxygen-carrying capacity of infants younger than six months, and, if left untreated, may lead to death from "blue baby" syndrome. Some studies suggest that long-term consumption of nitrate in drinking water may increase the risk of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Europe began tackling the problem in 1991 by designating "vulnerable zones" where the groundwater and streams were polluted with nitrate. Those zones now encompass 40 percent of the landmass in the continent. Today, 27 countries test for nitrate at 31,000 monitoring stations on or near farmland; and, with some overlap, at 27,000 monitoring stations in lakes, streams, and the ocean. Since 1991, reports show, nitrate use has dropped off sharply in Europe.

CSA: The Sustenance of Small Farms

By Jennifer Kohlhepp
Among the rows of ripe organic tomatoes, sweet corn and string beans, dreams grow at Mendies Family Farm in Roosevelt, western Monmouth County.

The 30 acres of farmland along North Rochdale Avenue sat barren for a decade before Lawrence Mendies purchased it in 2005. At that time he used the property to expand his swimming pool and landscaping business, growing native plants and trees there to sell along with fieldstone, boulders and mulch.

While their father installed pools and created natural settings in backyards across New Jersey, the Mendies children, Lawrence Jr. and Niyasia, minded the roadside stand, selling small crops of watermelon, tomatoes, corn and other produce grown on the farm.

Mendies' wife, Heidi, toiled from sunrise to sunset to keep the farm running while her husband was landscaping. That was the family's life on the farm until the season his line of work dried up.

"At one point the phone stopped ringing for swimming pools and landscaping," Mendies said.

When the economy tanked a couple of years ago, it took the family's pool and landscaping business with it. The effects could have been devastating, but the farm served as a buffer for the family.

"Basically, when the economy went down, our farm grew," Mendies said. "People didn't want swimming pools or landscaping, but they still needed to eat."

The family planted more crops and built a new farm stand where they could offer people an expanded variety of farm-fresh produce.

To further meet the community's needs, they took their vegetables, flowers and herbs to people who could not get to the farm. They worked with Downtown Hightstown Inc. to develop an annual farmers market. Now in its third year, the weekly market is held on Fridays from June through September, offering an array of produce, baked goods, and arts and crafts from local vendors.

Big Ag Wants To Make It a Crime to Expose Animal Abuse at Factory Farms

By Wayne Pacelle
What do Florida and Iowa have in common when it comes to animal agriculture? They've both been hot spots, past and present, for the movement to combat some of the worst abuses in industrial agribusiness. And now the factory farming industry is fighting back in both states-and their latest methods represent their biggest overreach yet.

In Florida, the Humane Society of the United States and other groups pushed for the adoption of the first statewide law in the country to restrict the extreme confinement of animals on factory farms. In 2002, voters there passed Amendment 10, to phase out the caging of breeding sows in gestation crates. In Iowa, HSUS and other animal welfare groups have conducted a series of undercover investigations (see the video) to expose cruelty in the nation's biggest factory farming state.

Now, these two states have something else in common. They are trying to make it a crime to photograph or videotape farm animals. They don't want to criminalize animal cruelty, but they do want to make criminals of people trying to document abuse and to put an end to the cruelty. Lawmakers have introduced bills in both states to establish criminal penalties for going undercover at agricultural facilities and simply taking pictures.

Raging Debate in Australia as Monsanto's GE Crops Contaminate Organic Farms

By Elizabeth Farrelly

The West Australian Minister for Agriculture, Terry Redman, wants to redefine "organic" to accommodate genetic engineering. Well he might wish it, since the legal battle brewing there over contamination of organic crops by genetically modified ones could easily blow right back onto his turf. Far scarier, though, is the environmental blowback, which could knock all these little old floods and cyclones into a cocked hat.

Steve Marsh is an organic farmer in Kojonup, four hours south-east of Perth. Or that's what he thought he was. So did the certifiers. Then, last December, the nightmare came true. Marsh's wheat and oats began testing 70 per cent positive for novel DNA and he was stripped of certification. A year earlier, following approval by the Gene Technology Regulator, the WA government approved commercialisation of GM, or ''Roundup Ready'', canola - although their own fact sheet at the time cited a United Nations report that "since the advent of GM canola in Canada farmers can no longer grow organic canola in western Canada."

They also admitted that GM canola can cross-pollinate with a number of other species, and eating such resulting crops would decertify organic livestock as well. Yet they broke their promise to publish a list of GM farmers so that non-GM growers could take evasive action. Their official advice? That "farmers discuss . . . this remote possibility

The FDA Finally Reveals How Many Antibiotics Factory Farms Use - and It's a Load

Animals in factory farms get daily doses of antibiotics, both to keep them alive in their stressful, unsanitary conditions and to make them grow faster. What's the annual volume of antibiotic use on factory farms? The question is a critical one, because the practice has given rise to a novel strain of antibiotic-resistant staph (MRSA), known as ST398, that's widely present in our vast hog and chicken factories.

Well, federal regulators have for years ignored the question and refused to release estimates of just how much antibiotics the livestock industry burns through. But that ended yesterday, when the FDA released its first-ever report on the topic. The answer: 29 million pounds in 2009. According to ace public-health reporter Maryn McKenna, that's a shitload. (I'm paraphrasing her.)

McKenna, author of the important book Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA and once a guest on my podcast show, puts it into context on her blog. She says that in lieu of official accounting of antibiotic use in industrial agriculture, NGOs have tried to fill the void. In 2000, she reports, the Animal Health Institute, a veterinary-drug trade group, estimated total use in livestock at 17.8 million pounds. The industry has been clinging to that number ever since.

Meanwhile, the Union of Concerned Scientists, which campaigns against industrial agriculture, put the figure at 24.6 million pounds in a 2001 study. But the UCS figure focused only on "non-therapeutic purposes" -- i.e.,  in McKenna's words, applications not designed to treat specific illnesses but rather to "make animals grow to market weight faster and to prevent them catching diseases in the close quarters of confinement agriculture." UCS figured the industry used another several million pounds for legit purposes of treating sick animals.

Assuming that factory farmers haven't dramatically ramped up antibiotic use over the past decade, the industry figure is woefully off -- about 40 percent lower than the real one. And the UCS estimate holds up well. I took another look at that classic UCS report, called "Hogging It: Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock." In it, the group estimates that total U.S. antibiotic production stands at 50 million pounds. Assuming that's roughly still correct -- again, the paper came out in 2001 -- that means factory animal farms hog a stunning 60 percent of U.S. antibiotics.

Importantly, McKenna says the FDA's report dovetails with the agency's "new effort to curb antibiotic use in agriculture." The first step to that effort, of course, is scrutiny and transparency. Margaret Hamburg's FDA deserves praise for finally delivering an accounting of how our animals factories are gulping antibiotics. 

Fish Farms Begin Use of New Pesticide

New Brunswick salmon farmers have started the use of a restricted pesticide that fights sea lice on farmed Atlantic salmon.

The aquaculture industry faced questions in recent weeks when it was revealed that companies could use Alphamax to battle sea lice, which are parasites that attach themselves to salmon.

Alphamax, which has been approved for use between October and December of this year, contains a chemical called deltamethrin. Health Canada advises the chemical does not pose a risk to human health or the environment when it's used according to the label directions and under the federal agency's conditions.

Alphamax is restricted to cages that are covered by tarps or contained areas called well boats, where fish are given a bath in the deltamethrin treatment.

The Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association invited reporters out for a salmon farm tour in Passamaquoddy Bay on Wednesday.

At an aquaculture site at Hardwood Island, fish are pumped into a well, where a mixture of the pesticide and sea water is then flushed in.

Why New GIPSA Rules Support Family Farms

The USDA has a law on the books that levels the playing field between family farmers who raise cattle, hogs and poultry and the large meat packers who purchase their livestock and bring it to market. It's called the Packers and Stockyard Act, and its overseen by the USDA's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration or GIPSA. But don't tussle with that mouthful because it doesn't explain what you need to know about the complex livestock market system. Just keep reading. GIPSA makes sure small producers have equal access to market that larger producers do. It's fair competition, which is, of course, the American way.

Sounds great, right? And just in time for the good food revolution. But instead, this law has been gathering dust because the USDA hasn't enforced it. New proposed rules (previously covered here on Civil Eats) amending the act would prevent large meat packers from artificially lowering the price of cattle, hogs and lamb. But four companies control over 80 percent of the U.S. meat market, and these "Big Four" are fighting an effort to strengthen the rule.

For all you urban food geeks who've never ridden the North Dakota range or shoveled chicken manure in central North Carolina, here's some context. When you're raising livestock, timely access to market is critical because a meat animal is a perishable product. When the animal has reached optimal weight, it must be sold in a narrow window of time, typically within two to three weeks. If it cannot be processed, it begins to degrade in quality, and a producer is subject to a significant price deflation. If a packer won't purchase your animals for slaughter, you're stuck selling your animal either too early or too late, competitive bidding isn't possible, and the packer conspires to give you a ridiculously low price for your labors.