Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Desert Eagle" <jimi@hdc-nm.com>]

Paul, and all,
    I have yet to post to the group, not because I have had nothing to say, 
just I have been real busy. With working on 2 full raised bed Bio-Intensive 
gardens totally covering almost a half acre, and 13 miles apart, I have been 
busier than a 1 armed paper hanger with a long tailed cat in a rocking chair 
factory. So far the group is lively, active and full of ideas and opinions. 
Things that made America Great. (Yes, I am a vet, nuff said, Paul knows the 
story).
    Now, my educated 2 cents worth on this. As some may know, and probably 
most don't, my Bride and I operate a food vending both as well as farm fresh 
produce from our gardens at out local Carlsbad Farmers Market each Saturday. 
Having to deal with the NMED, (New Mexico Environmental Dept.) for our food 
venders permit, we are up close and personal with our inspector. We will 
simply refer to him as "F", for his own anonymity. We work had to meet all 
the requirements to be able to serve on site food, prepared off site, as 
well as on site grilling of hot dogs, burgers and grilled veggies.
    About 3 weeks ago F visited us for a cursory inspection. He ask point 
blank, "Did we have tomatoes for our burgers and such. When we told him yes, 
he wanted to know "from where". For us, it was easy, Becky, one of the 
venders had the best tomatoes around. He visited with her, verified our 
purchase of them and was satisfied. Becky even gave him her address and 
invited him to inspect her garden if he so desired. Being the Gentleman he 
was, he declined, but thanked her.
    I ask F point blank, was this salmonella problem local, he said no. "Was 
it a US Growers problem", he said No. I ask him if it was from another 
country, maybe south of us, he simply smiled and said nothing. He did say 
that the investigations covered particular lots, from particular area's, not 
US. I ask him if it could have something to do with the recent "Political 
Efforts" to build relations with foreign countries, and he simply looked at 
me with a smirk of approval.
    So, my educated guess is this, our government is afraid to say "Where" 
the produce came from, and how it got so widely spread, because it could 
cause problems being an election year.
    You draw your own conclusions.
Jimi
NM Certified Master Gardener
Desert Eagle Farm
A Privately operated
Agricultural Research Facility
Lakewood, NM 88254



The Perils Of Industrial Agriculture
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?&entry_id=27828
Beef. Spinach. Pet food. Now tomatoes.

What is up with our food being contaminated? There was an E. coli recall 
issued yesterday. If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, you know that 
grass-fed cattle produce healthier meat and do not get E. coli. But grass 
doesn't fatten cattle as quickly, so industrial agriculture prefers to feed 
them corn, soy, even other cows, causing the cows to get fat-and sick, 
requiring huge quantities of antibiotics and producing more climate-changing 
methane than they would if they ate a more natural diet (seriously, cow 
burps are a significant source of GHGs).

Why does the government-particularly the FDA, which is in charge of 
produce-have such a hard time finding the problem when there is one? It's 
been almost a month since tomatoes were linked to salmonella poisoning (that 
must have originated in meat), and the FDA still hasn't found the source of 
the problem. That's because the FDA doesn't track produce. The 
administration wrote a report outlining the need to track tomatoes in 
particular, but never asked for funding to implement the plan.

The FDA does fewer inspections now than it did in the early 70s. The 
government doesn't want to know about or document food contamination, 
because doing so would pull the blindfold off consumers' eyes about where 
our food comes, and how it's produced. The truth is not pretty-tomatoes and 
slaughtered animals being tossed around together-and if Americans get queasy 
about the industrial food system, it will be hard to bring them back to the 
table.

Organic agriculture already has chain of custody systems that document where 
food comes from. Of course, it's much easier to do that when your market is 
smaller and you can charge more for what you grow.

How can we make healthy food accessible for everyone?


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