produce and food safety regulation again

[rambler]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MN0218DVJ8.DTL

This is a pretty long article about self impossed & sorta govt presented regulations to 'ensure' safer food. It includes barren buffer strips, destroying 30 feet of crops where squirrels or deer have been seeing walking, and so on.

I don't know if this is volintary, govt imposed/ supervised, just one crackpot county, big farm only, or what.

But, it seems pretty far out!

I don't know if this is what the American public wants? They don't have much idea where food comes from, or how to prepare it any more?

If these programs are out there, someday they could apply to you.

Seems totally off the deep end to me.

--->Paul

[mpillow]

OH NO!!!

Bear scat on my buckwheat....I'm gonna die!

[chickenista]

There are similar regulations about growing in California, but I think those are voluntary if you want to sell in some special way or whatever.
But if they (the inspectors involved) see bird poop on a spinach leaf, they can reject all 50 acres of the spinach etc..

[Paquebot]

In Wisconsin, orchards commonly used any and all windfall apples for making cider. Loved that fresh stuff with every batch being almost unique depending upon the orchard. Then lots of e-coli cases were reported from apple cider. It was from deer droppings under the trees. Now all cider has to be pasteurized before it can be sold.

Martin

[firegirl969]

If crops could not be sold if there were deer within 30 feet of them, then no crops would come from GA anymore. We are overrun with deer. An average of 3 cause wrecks in our little rural area each night.

[ronbre]

OMG DEER...Squirrels too !!!!!!! they might poop on my property ????? (i thought that is what i wanted them to do ??? ) I use deer, rabbit and bird poooo for a lot of my fertilizing here..they spread it for me..it is free..and they really don't do any real damage to my property ( i do fence in baby trees etc)

heaven help if i should sell or even give some of my edibles or even non edibles to someone ..they MIGHT DIE !!!!!! (guess i'll just have to eat the deer and rabbit..squirrels here are way to small to cook)

[T-Bone 369]

I've read several articles on this in the American Vegetable Grower - these rules came from a consortium of packers after the spinich e-coli outbreak. It way done for two reasons - to protect from lawsuits and to pre-empt government regulations. The farmers are caught in a bind - the rules are not binding so they do not have to follow them but no packer will buy their product. In essence it's a knee-jerk reaction - if the lawyers had their way all food would be grown in sealed, sterile buildings with robots as pickers.

[Wolf mom]

Actually, I don't think it's the lawyers that want all food grown in sealed sterile buildings as they'd then have no jobs or income. Who would they sue?

I think it's the liberal progressives that want us to be wrapped in sterile cotton at birth, laid in a cocoon and fed pap intravenously until death.

Do what your mama said: Wash your hands, & wash your vegies, too.

[mpillow]

For one thing its costing too much for most farmers to comply and for another its going to cause a serious hike in prices due to waste (rejection of produce) and compliance costs
*
Coupled with
*
a falling dollar, higher fuel costs,taxes and bad weather and people will go hungry or forced to eat food of a much lesser quality than a little bird poo on some spinach....

some, maybe most of us have developed some immunity to low levels of samonella and ecoli.....I love to eat raw lean homegrown hamburg to help with my iron deficiency....been doing it since I was 6 years old....no mad cow here...

[Windy in Kansas]

Irradiation time. http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodIngredie.../ucm135143.htm

[Old Vet]

Just kill all the animals that come near your vegetables. That is what it is about.