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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

Recently the E. Coli contamination of organic spinach was mentioned and I 
brought up that the accepted contamination vector was wild hogs.  Some have 
rejected this so I decided to do a little research.  I took an online class 
on safe food handling and I am currently helping out on an organic vegetable 
farm in the San Benito Valley near Hollister, California.  The contamination 
took place just a few miles from where I am writing this, in fact I have seen 
the field.  The field is surrounded on two sides by cattle grazing and scrub 
land, home to the wild hogs.

The ancestors to these hogs were imported by the early Spanish and are a 
problem in many agricultural areas of California.  There is a continuing 
battle between hunters who want to keep a population for hunting, farmers who 
want to eliminate a major expense and environmentalists who want to reduce 
back country damage cause by hogs, and animal rights people who want to leave 
them be.

The wild hog vector is a construct of the FDA.  There is no proof, no 
sightings of hog tracks or spoor.  No hogs have been found with that strain 
of E. Coli 57.  The FDA chose that vector as a way to close the investigation 
and they are sticking to it no matter what the facts.  As a result large 
purchasers such as COSTCO, Safeway, WalMart, and others are forcing unneeded 
and unscientific changes on the organic food producers.  These requirements 
consist of a 50 foot buffer zone.  This will do nothing to stop the hogs from 
munching on the nice vegetables and destroys beneficial insect habitant.

Where the E. Coli came from in unknown but how it spread is a direct result 
of industrial agriculture.  You may have an image of organic farming as a 
farmer in the field doing hand work but it is not so.  About the only 
difference between the organic farmer and the chemical counterpart is in the 
use of chemicals.  Organic farmers build soil and use compost, beneficial 
insects, cover crops, etc instead of strip mining soil and using chemical 
fertilizers, insecticides, and GMO seeds.  The use of expensive and high tech 
machinery is almost the same for large organic farmers as for chemical 
farmers.

In order tot he E. Coli to be spread, it had to get inside the plant.  It 
cannot grow there so it has to be introduced.  Much harvesting is done by a 
bandsaw like mechanical harvester.  The saw blades cut anything and 
everything so if there was a contaminated piece of feces, the saw teeth would 
carry it to all the plants cut.  The sorting and cleaning process tumbles the 
plant, bending it in such a way that opens small cracks, and another source 
of spreading contamination.  Delivery long distances makes temperature 
control important so if stored or transported above 41 degrees for even a 
short period of time can cause explosive bacteria growth.

The farm I am helping out on uses manual pickers, workers with a knife who 
can see what the knife is about to touch.  Manual picking also rejects as 
they go along eliminating the bending of mechanized sorting.  Plants are 
washed and spun out in a process that does not introduce cracks in the plant 
and spread contamination.  

Don Bowen      KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html
>From indexer AT localnet.com  Fri May  9 19:30:11 2008
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Subject: [Homestead] Rendering lard: can I take a break?
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I started rendering a very large batch of fat (2 large hogs' worth) for
lard this morning and it has taken all day and is I'd say only half
done.  Anybody know: is it OK (as in safe) to just let the fire out
under it for the night and start back in the morning where I left off?
I know it'll have to reheat, but beyond that....???  Has anyone ever
done it?

I've never tried to do it that way but just decided I'm too old and
tired to do it all in one jag...I used to do this amount all the time and
sometimes I forget how heavy all this stuff is...how much luggin' there is, 
how frightful the blackflies are at this time of year....

Actually, come to thin of it, the blackflies don't usually begin biting until 
after the middle of May, but I guess those where the old rules because 
they've made some wicked big welts up under my sleeves today.

Anyhow, anyone know about the lard?

Susan Jane, in Maine