permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/21/246386290/organic-farmers-bash-fda-restrictions-on-manure-use
Organic Farmers Bash FDA Restrictions On Manure Use
 by
 November 21, 2013 3:22 AM

Many organic farmers are hopping mad at the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, and their reason involves perhaps the most underappreciated
part of agriculture: plant food, aka fertilizer. Specifically, the FDA, as
part of its of food safety regulations, wants to limit the use of animal
manure.

"We think of it as the best thing in the world," says organic farmer Jim
Crawford, "and they think of it as toxic and nasty and disgusting."

Every highly productive farmer depends on fertilizer. But organic farmers
are practically obsessive about it, because they've renounced industrial
sources of nutrients.

So on this crisp fall morning, Crawford is rhapsodic as he watches his
field manager, Pearl Wetherall, spread manure across a field where cabbage
grew last summer.

"All that green material — that cover crop and the cabbage — all mixed up
with that nice black manure that's just rich and full of good
microorganisms, and we're going to get a wonderful fertility situation for
next spring here," he says.

Crawford, founder of in south-central Pennsylvania, buys hundreds of tons
of manure every year from a big turkey farm a few miles away. "It's really
at the heart of our operation for having good, rich soil, and good
fertility, so that we have the highest-quality crops."

It's also part of a natural cycle, and the basis of organic farming. Most
crops strip vital nutrients from the soil. But the nutrients don't
disappear; if you feed those crops to cattle or turkeys, the nutrients
mostly end up in manure. For the turkey farmer, the manure is waste. For
Crawford, it's precious. "Cycling nutrients. That's what it's all about.
Cycling organic nutrients."

This is a typical practice among organic farmers, especially the smaller
ones. But they may now have to change.

The Food and Drug Administration considers manure a food safety risk.
Disease-causing microbes, such as salmonella or toxic forms of* E. coli*,
are commonly found in animal waste.

Patricia Milner, a microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
research center in Beltsville, Md., says scientists are now trying to
figure out exactly how long such bacteria survive in the soil. "In some
cases, salmonella will survive for a few weeks; in other cases, it'll be
reported that it survives for 300-plus days," she says.

When they survive, microbes do get on food. Carrots or radishes, of course,
grow right in the soil. But bacteria also end up on salad greens.
Raindrops, for instance, splash soil and microbes onto the plants.

There's a lot of uncertainty about exactly how big of a risk this is. But
the FDA is saying better safe than sorry.

The agency is proposing new national food safety rules

FSMA Proposed Rule for Produce Safety
Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for
Human Consumption

http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ucm334114.htm.

If those rules are enacted, when farmers spread raw manure on a field, they
won't be allowed to harvest any crops from that field for the next nine
months. (This applies only to crops that people eat raw, such as carrots or
lettuce.)

The rules don't cover the smallest farms. They apply to farms with more
than half a million dollars in annual sales, or which supply food to
supermarkets.

But that includes Crawford's farm.

He already follows the organic rules; he doesn't harvest crops within four
months of spreading manure. But having to wait nine months — longer than a
growing season — would completely disrupt his operations. "We wouldn't even
be able to function," he says.

There is an alternative: composted manure. The heat from composting kills
disease-causing microbes. But Crawford says compost would cost him anywhere
from three to six times more than manure. And he just doesn't see why he
should have to switch, because he doesn't believe that what he does now is
at all risky.

"No one's ever been sickened by anything we've grown, in probably millions
of transactions between us and our customers over 40 years," he says.
Crawford sells most of his food at farmers markets in Washington, D.C.

Yet organic farmers are not united in their opposition to the FDA
regulations. There's a divide between large and small producers.

, in California, is among the biggest organic producers of salad greens.
Will Daniel, the company's chief food integrity officer, says, "History is
not always your greatest ally, unfortunately. We never thought that we
would see spinach or other produce involved in outbreaks." But in 2006, his
company's spinach was to an outbreak of *E. coli* poisoning; 200 people got
sick. Three died.

Raw manure was not the source of that outbreak. (There's evidence the *E.
coli* could have come from wild pigs that got into the fields.) But Daniel
says using manure does involve risks that his company won't take.

Instead, Earthbound Farm uses mostly "a pelletized, processed chicken
manure product" that's been treated with heat and pressure to kill all
microbes.

"We've gone in that direction because we feel that it's very important to
assure that we are not spreading these pathogens in our fields, that could
lead to contaminated product," he says.

Daniel supports the FDA's proposed rules on manure. Many smaller organic
farmers, meanwhile, are sending the FDA a blizzard of comments, arguing
that the environmental benefits of using manure far outweigh the risks.

The comment period ends on Nov. 22.