The Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI released a memo in October that apparently urged the State of California to find a way to use regulation to prevent another E.coli outbreak:
In a legal petition filed with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Department of Health Services Director Sandra Shewry, CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal said that mandatory regulations governing manure, water and sanitation on farms could help reduce the number of produce-borne food outbreaks.
[…]
In addition to the recent spinach outbreak, tomatoes, lettuces, melons, sprouts, carrot juice and other foods contaminated with E. coli, Salmonella or other pathogens have caused outbreaks. Those pathogens are usually—though not always—linked back to animal agriculture, which CSPI says warrants a particular regulatory focus on manure and water.
[…]
CSPI says that the use of raw manure as fertilizer should be prohibited during the growing season, and that composting practices should be monitored to ensure pathogens are destroyed. Water used for irrigation must be tested and found suitable and only drinkable water should be used in produce processing facilities, according to the group.
CSPI’s petition also urges better hygiene and sanitation on farms, and for improved package markings that can be used to track back produce to the farm of origin.
Crazy. That almost sounds like they want food to be clean. Wonder if they can find a way to not only convince consumers but foreign countries that American food is safe.
And if you think it’s getting hard to trust food that comes from some remote farm (that you will never step foot on), it turns out you even can’t trust pesticides anymore:
In February this year, a counterfeit herbicide used in Italy was found to contain quantities of a potentially dangerous insecticide. In 2004, hundreds of hectares of wheat were wiped out in France, Italy and Spain because of a fake herbicide. And a 2002 study of supermarket produce in the UK found traces of eight illegal and potentially dangerous compounds.
Not that pesticides should have ever been trusted, but the fear of “terrorism” certainly highlights the flaws in a web of trust surrounding modern agriculture. Wonder if China will be facing some similar urgings after events like this one:
China has arrested the manager of a factory which used grease from swill, sewage and recycled industrial oil to make edible lard, a Chinese newspaper said on Monday in the latest health scare to hit the country.
Health officials also detected “toxic pesticide” in lard produced by the Fanchang Grease Factory in Taizhou, in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the Shanghai Daily said.
Yuck. It is even harder to control something when people believe it to be the key to their health. I’ve met many Americans who are convinced that pesticides are what keeps their food safe for consumption. But I find that about as ironic as the last part of the AP story on Chinese lard:
Authorities in several cities last month found Sudan IV, a cancer-causing industrial dye, in “red-yolk” duck eggs sold to poultry farmers who had mixed it with feed.
Red yolks are regarded as a sign of extra nutrition, thus making them more expensive.
So you pay more for the colorful appearance of nutrition, even though the color is cancer-causing — sounds familiar.