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Michael Olson’s Food Chain Radio Show #1348
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GUESTS: Jo Ann Baumgartner, Executive Director, Wild Farm Alliance and Sam Earnshaw, Executive Director Hedgerows Unlimited
Back in 2006, a multi-state outbreak of E. Coli O157:H7 killed three and sickened an additional 202. The source of that E. Coli was found to be spinach from California, and the cause was believed to be contamination from the spinach farm.
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Farming Wildlife and Hedgerows
Consumers stopped buying the spinach, as well as other leafy green produce, and so growers had to let their precious greens to go to seed in the fields.
Though the contaminated spinach came from one grower, the entire leafy greens industry suffered its consequences. As a result of their suffering, and threats from the government, growers got together and formed the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, which in effect, laid down the law on how member growers could tend to their leafy greens.
Consequent to the implementation of the Agreement, growers began fencing off their fields from all the wild things in nature that might harbor E Coli. Today, many of those farms are as barren of extraneous life as can be made possible. No deer… no skunks… no birds… no anything!
But wait… Not everyone thinks that farms need to be without nature and it wildlife. In fact, some point in the other direction and claim that farms should foster the growth of as much life as possible. And these contrarians lead us to ask:
Leave a comment below : Should nature, and its wildlife, be allowed back on farms?
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Michael Olson’s Three Laws of the Food Chain
#1 Agriculture is the foundation upon which we build all our sand castles.
#2 The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in that food.
#3 Cheap food isn’t! READ MORE
1 Comment
We had a project over 4 years to examine every aspect we could think of about outdoor vs indoor pigs.
The bottom line was that wildlife killed outdoor pigs as a main-stay.
We found 2 food safety issues with outdoor pigs: Influenza brought by migrating birds and Salmonella from birds and rodents.
The wildlife continually inoculated the feed and water such that outdoor pigs tested positive for both while littermate pigs raised indoors did not have either. Sure, you can cook the meat and kill the Salmonella, but the Influenza was a serious issue in that farm workers were exposed as well as their pets and any other animals in which they come in contact with. Worse, the pigs were infectious but they themselves showed no signs of disease (they were immune, or put another way, the survivors).
If this makes you less willing to eat meat just know that most crops are raised outside and so the same risk is greater for outdoor plants.
Please be sensible about making broad statements about one food source or another and lets practice good hygiene when cooking.