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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] from 2009 - a lesson on industrial farming
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:26:07 -0700


"What happened this year is the worst case scenario only possible in an
industrialized food system. "

from 2009 - a lesson on industrial farming
excerpt

Tomato Disappointment: A Farmer’s Perspective on Late Blight in the Northeast
July 28th, 2009 By MK Wyle
http://civileats.com/2009/07/28/battling-late-blight-in-the-north-east/

Earlier this summer, tomato transplants sold in Lowes, Walmart, and Home
Depot carried the spores of Phytophthora infestans (literally “plant
destroyer” in Latin) into the Northeast, where a cool, wet summer provided
ideal conditions for an epidemic. Phytophthora infestans, more commonly
referred to as late blight, is an incredibly contagious plant disease, which
can knock out entire fields of tomatoes and potatoes in a matter of days.
Late blight was the cause of the infamous Irish Potato Famine of the
nineteenth century—this is a plant disease which means business.

Normally, late blight does not affect the Northeast, as cold winters prevent
any spores from wintering over. In the south, where late blight can survive
winter, the high heat of summer holds the blight in check and prevents the
total crop loss that Northeastern farmers now dread. What happened this year
is the worst case scenario only possible in an industrialized food system.
The disease overwintered in an Alabama nursery, which then shipped infected
plants to the Northeast and spread the blight far more quickly and
ubiquitously than the disease ever could have traveled on its own.

At the farm where I am working, late blight has been creeping ever nearer for
the last two weeks: first it was in all the states surrounding Massachusetts,
then it was in nearby counties, then it was here, in Berkshire county, until
Friday, when my boss, Don, found the first blighted tomato on our farm. We
had eaten our first cherry tomatoes on Monday.










  • [Livingontheland] from 2009 - a lesson on industrial farming, Tradingpost, 01/12/2011

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