There are many ways to protect crops, besides industrial pesticides. According to Ken Kimes, owner of Santa Cruz County’s New Native Farms and a board member of the Community Alliance With Family Farmers, the people who are setting the rules have a lot to learn about that. “They’re used to working inside the factory walls,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “If they’re not prepared for the farm landscape, it can come as quite a shock to them.”
Kimes is protesting new restrictions being imposed on him by large buyers, who are fearful of potential E. coli outbreaks. The problem, according to Kimes, is that many of the food safety auditors have been trained in indoor processing plants, and have no real-life farming experience. On his farm, for instance, no children under five are allowed to visit for fear of contamination through dirty diapers. Dick Peixoto, who grows organic vegetables in the Pajaro Valley, has been forced to tear up the fennel and cilantro that surround his fields in order to create a bare dirt buffer. According to him, the herbs are a natural alternative to chemical pesticides.
Michael Pollan of UC Berkeley calls the new demands “foolhardy. You have to think about what’s the logical end point of looking at food this way. It’s food grown indoors hydroponically.” Dr. Andy Gordus of the California Department of Fish and Game agrees. He also blames proposed new regulations on the hysteria surrounding E. coli outbreaks in the headlines.
Peixoto adds that regulation creep, whether by large buyers or the government, will eventually make it impossible for small farmers to meet their guidelines. “We just tell them that’s all we can do, and we have to turn down that customer.”
Meanwhile, small farmers in Central California are waiting anxiously for the outcome of a bill proposed by Representative Henry Waxman (D) of Los Angeles, which would give even more power to the FDA to regulate all farms. Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.
