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  • From: Jeff Hine <jeffreyhine@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] FDA FSMA Proposed Rule for Produce Safety | Organic Farmers Bash FDA Restrictions On Manure Use : The Salt : NPR
  • Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 08:39:06 -0700

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible for these farmers to buy the
manure and compost it for a year then spread it? If it was handled
correctly it may be enriched by further beneficial microorganisms and a
lessening of pathogenic. A win for all involved.


On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Lawrence London
<lfljvenaura@gmail.com>wrote:

>
> 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.
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: -j




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