Shoppers wary of GM foods find they're everywhere.
You may not want to eat genetically engineered foods. Chances are, you are eating them anyway.
Genetically modified plants grown from seeds engineered in labs now provide much of the food we eat. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States have been genetically modified to resist pesticides or insects, and corn and soy are common food ingredients.
The Agriculture Department has approved three more genetically engineered crops in the past month, and the Food and Drug Administration could approve fast-growing genetically modified salmon for human consumption this year.
Agribusiness and the seed companies say their products help boost crop production, lower prices at the grocery store and feed the world, particularly in developing countries. The FDA and USDA say the engineered foods they've approved are safe -- so safe, they don't even need to be labeled as such -- and can't be significantly distinguished from conventional varieties.
Organic food companies, chefs and consumer groups have stepped up their efforts -- so far, unsuccessfully -- to get the government to exercise more oversight of engineered foods, arguing the seeds are floating from field to field and contaminating pure crops. The groups have been bolstered by a growing network of consumers who are wary of processed and modified foods.
Many of these opponents acknowledge that there isn't much solid evidence showing genetically modified foods are somehow dangerous or unhealthy. It just doesn't seem right, they say. It's an ethical issue.
"If you mess with nature there's a side effect somewhere," says George Siemon, CEO of Organic Valley, the nation's largest organic farming cooperative, which had more than $600 million in sales last year. "There is a growing awareness that our system makes us all guinea pigs of sorts."
The U.S. government has insisted there's not enough difference between the genetically modified seeds its agencies have approved and natural seeds to cause concern. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, more so than his predecessors in previous administrations, has acknowledged the debate over the issue and a growing chorus of consumers concerned about what they are eating.
"The rapid adoption of GE crops has clashed with the rapid expansion of demand for organic and other non-GE products," Vilsack said in December as he considered whether to approve genetically modified alfalfa. "This clash led to litigation and uncertainty . . . Surely, there is a better way, a solution that acknowledges agriculture's complexity, while celebrating and promoting its diversity."
Vilsack later approved the engineered alfalfa for use -- along with sugar beets and a type of corn used in ethanol -- to the disappointment of the organic industry, but he said the department would do additional research on ways to prevent contamination of natural seeds and improve detection of contamination.
Organic companies have praised Vilsack for even acknowledging the issue, as large seed companies like Monsanto and the substantial chunk of agribusiness that use their seeds have long held sway at USDA.
The organic industry has a lot to lose. USDA regulations do not allow genetically modified seeds to be used in organic production, and organic farmers say that as engineered crops become more common, it will be harder to prevent contamination. The industry also is concerned fears of contamination could hurt its sales, especially in Europe, where consumers have been extremely hesitant about biotech foods.
While opponents of engineered foods haven't found federal agencies overly receptive to their concerns, they've been able to delay some USDA approvals with lawsuits. The alfalfa decision followed a lengthy court battle that was closely watched not only by the organic industry, but by consumers -- a development that opponents believe will help their cause.
"We're seeing a level of reaction that is unprecedented," says Jeffrey Smith, an activist who has fought the expansion of genetically engineered foods since they were first introduced 15 years ago and written two books on the subject. "I personally think we are going to hit the tipping point of consumer rejection very soon."
Many consumers also have followed the Food and Drug Administration's consideration of an engineered salmon that grows twice as fast as the conventional variety. If the FDA approves the fish for sale, it will be the first time the government has allowed genetically modified animals to be marketed for humans to eat.
Consumer interest in the issue has magnified in the past five years, along with interest in eating locally grown and organic foods, said Organic Valley's Siemon. Young, educated consumers who are driving much of the organic market have no interest in eating crops derived from a laboratory, he said. With as much as 80 percent of the foods in grocery stores containing some sort of engineered ingredient, according to the food industry, some companies have started labeling foods as non-modified to grab onto that share of the market.
Genetically modified crops were introduced to the market in 1996. That year, engineered corn accounted for less than 5 percent of the total crop. Last year, the USDA estimated that 70 percent of the nation's corn acreage was planted with corn engineered to resist herbicides and 63 percent had been planted with insect-resistant seeds. Rates for soybeans and cotton are even higher.
The federal government approves genetically modified plants and animals on a case by case basis, with the FDA and USDA looking at the potential effects on food safety, agriculture and the environment. Critics say the process needs to be more thorough and more research should be done with an eye on potential dangers. Agencies often rely on companies' own data to make their decisions.
The genetic engineering industry says its products already receive far more scrutiny than most of the food people put in their mouths. It also says 15 years of consumption with no widely recognized health problems shows much of the concern is overhyped.
David B. Schmidt, who heads the International Food Information Council Foundation, a food-industry funded group that has polled consumers on genetically modified foods, said their responses depend on how the issue is framed. When pollsters tell consumers that some foods can be engineered to have health benefits -- such as biotech soybeans designed to reduce trans fats in soybean oil -- they become more open to them. Most consumers are more open to modifications in fruits and vegetables than in animals, he added.
Still, many people don't know what to think. About half of the consumers the foundation has polled recently have either been neutral on the subject or didn't know enough to have an opinion.
Dan Barber, a well-known New York chef who grows his own food and sits on President Barack Obama's Council on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, said the growing popularity of organic foods has given an "economic legitimacy" to the criticism.
He believes messing with nature will always have collateral damage. And, the more genetically modified crops are used, he said, the more pure crops will become compromised.
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
End.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
The benefits of buying“local”organic food.
More and more consumers and corporations are touting the benefits of “local” foods, often described as “sustainable,” “healthy,” or “natural.” According to the trade publication, Sustainable Food News, local as a marketing claim has grown by 15 percent from 2009 to 2010, and it’s likely that number will increase in the coming year.1 Even supermarket giant and junk food purveyor Wal-Mart, with total sales in 2009 of $405 billion, has jumped on the bandwagon. It has pledged to reduce food miles and increase its purchase of “local” fruits and vegetables to include 9% of its produce by 2015. 2
Those who espouse local food are now called “locavores.” But, beyond the greenwashing and co-opting of the term by Wal-Mart, the supermarket chains, and factory farms and feedlots, what does “local” food and farming really mean? What is the impact of non-organic local food and farming on public health, nutrition, soil, water, marine life, biodiversity, and climate?
Jessica Prentice coined the term locavore for World Environment Day in 2005 to promote local eating, and local consumption in general. Her goal was to challenge people to obtain as much food as possible from within a one hundred mile radius. Her success was more than she imagined. In 2007 the New Oxford American Dictionary selected “locavore” as its word of the year. Local had arrived!
Then, the highly respected author Barbara Kingsolver published Animal Vegetable, Miracle emphasizing the value of eating locally, and the concept spread like wildfire. 3 While the eat local/buy local concept is increasingly popular, looking beyond the label or the marketing claims, it is obvious that “local” is a rather fuzzy concept, lacking in most cases a concrete definition or a set of principles and guidelines.
By contrast, the organic system of food production has legal definitions, a handbook of rules, permitted and prohibited substances, acceptable practices, an inspection process, and labels to guide the consumers. Local has none of these guidelines, rules, inspections or protections. It has the cachet of popularity without any guarantee of safety or sustainability.
Some chemical farmers, and even poultry, egg, pork, dairy, or beef operators feeding their animals genetically modified (GMO) grains, claim that local is better than organic, because it stimulates the local economy and reduces the distance (food miles) that food travels between the farm or feedlot and your table. But does so-called local farming, utilizing toxic pesticides, GMO seeds and feed, chemical fertilizers, and animal drugs mean that the food is safe and sustainable? Obviously not. We believe that there shouldn’t have to be a choice between local and safe organic; but rather that consumers should look for food that is not only local or regionally produced, but food that is also organic and therefore safe and sustainable. Local and chemical, or local using GMO seeds and feed, is nothing more than greenwashing. Organic and local is the new gold standard!
The locavore phenomenon brings up several important concerns including: food miles, chemically grown food, greenhouse gas emissions, factory farming, genetically engineered animal feed, and the value of organic labeling. All of these crucial issues relate to the central question: what should be in your market basket?
Does Local Mean Safe?
Despite the increasing popularity of the eat-local movement, many people do not understand that “local” does not necessarily mean that food is organic or even safe. Chemically grown foods produced locally may be cheaper than organic and may aid the local economy. But they pollute the ground water, kill the soil food web, and decrease the soil’s ability to sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gasses, broadcast pesticides into the air, poison farmworkers, and incrementally poison consumers with toxic residues on their foods. “Local” pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and chemical fertilizers are just as poisonous as those used in California, Mexico, Chile, or China.
Frequently, local chemical farmers claim that they only use “less toxic” pesticides or herbicides such as Monsanto’s Roundup. Unfortunately, “less toxic” is a dangerously relative term! Roundup is a powerful weed-killer, and is now sprayed so heavily on the nation’s 150 million acres of genetically engineered crops that it is poisoning our water supplies, killing the soil, and creating superweeds that can only be killed with super-toxic herbicides such as 2,4 D, arsenic and paraquat. Farmers in the U.S. have used everything from arsenic, lead, cyanide, fluorine, DDT, and nerve poisons since the 1860s, and they still use massive amounts. More than 80% of all the pesticides currently used in vegetable, fruit, and flower production are nerve poisons that were used on insects and also on concentration camp victims during the first and second World Wars.
Organophosphate pesticides or nerve poisons have been linked to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. Organophosphate nerve poisons were found in the urine and saliva of Seattle preschool children who were eating conventional (chemical) and local food from off the shelf. When the kids stopped eating chemical food and ate organic food the organophosphates disappeared from their saliva and urine. When the children returned to the chemical diet, the nerve poisons showed up in their urine and saliva again.4 Nerve poisons, whether they are used on foods that are locally, nationally, or internationally produced and distributed are dangerous hazards, especially for growing children and at-risk populations. They need to be driven off the market, as soon as possible.
Does “Pesticide Free” Mean Safe or Sustainable?
Often, growers at farmers markets will say, “ I don’t use pesticides, I only use chemical fertilizers.” Sadly, what many people do not realize is that chemical fertilizers are extremely hazardous. A high percentage of these fertilizers seep into our wells and municipal drinking water, or else run off into our streams, rivers, and finally end up in the ocean. Two-thirds of the nation’s drinking water is contaminated with hazardous levels of nitrogen fertilizer. Non-organic farmers and feedlot operators are literally poisoning us and our children with the collateral damage of chemical fertilizers. High nitrogen and phosphorous levels in rivers and oceans kill fish and other marine wildlife. When this enormous amount of excess nitrogen enters the ocean it causes dead zones and oceanic acidification.
Some “pesticide free” growers will argue that since they only use chemical fertilizers, their produce is cleaner. Their food may not have high pesticide residues. But, remind them that cleaner isn’t clean! And inform your local chemical farmer that their toxic fertilizer is polluting our drinking water, trashing the oceans, killing the soil’s ability to sequester greenhouse gases, destabilizing the nitrogen cycle of plants, and emitting billions of pounds of deadly greenhouse gasses every year. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is perhaps the most potent greenhouse gas emitter in the U.S. To produce each pound of fertilizer, 6.6 pounds of nitrous oxide (N2O) are emitted. Nitrous oxide accounts for a full ten percent of all climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases.
Nitrous oxide is extremely hazardous. It depletes the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere (thereby increasing skin cancer for humans). It increases ozone pollution levels at the ground level (fueling the current epidemic of asthma and respiratory diseases.) Poisonous nitrate fertilizers leaching into our rural wells and municipal drinking water supplies (where it combines into a super-toxic brew with pesticides) are a biological time bomb, a major cause of cancer, infertility, hormone disruption, and birth defects.
Perhaps most deadly of all, nitrate fertilizer kills our living soils and soil microorganisms, decreasing their ability to sequester (through plant photosynthesis) excess greenhouse gasses in the soil. Even after a century of industrial farmers dumping hundreds of billions of pounds of chemical fertilizers on farmlands, our living soils still contain two to three times as much carbon as the atmosphere, with the practical capacity to clean and safely sequester a considerable amount of greenhouse gases over the next 40 years. In other words, our living soils can save us—but only if we stop the widespread use of nitrate fertilizers, GMO crops, and pesticides and replace these deadly chemicals and mutant organisms with organic compost, compost tea, and cover crops, augmented by the biological power and fertility generated by organic, carefully planned, high-density rotational grazing of animals.
The energy-intensive manufacturing of nitrate fertilizers requires the use of massive amounts of natural gas, a resource in short supply, that will increasingly be needed to take us through the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy. We can no longer afford to waste natural gas in order to uphold the profits of Cargill, Monsanto, and Food Inc. We can no longer afford to have chemical-intensive food and farming greenwashed as “local.”
U.S. non-organic farmers used an average of 24 billion, 661 million pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer per year from 1998 to 2007. That means that more than one hundred sixty-two billion, seven hundred sixty-two million pounds of nitrous oxide (N2O) are released each year in the process of manufacturing that fertilizer. 5 Also released is the CO2 from transporting the fertilizer. Since 70% of synthetic nitrogen is imported, the transportation cost is increasingly higher each year. Beyond production and transportation emissions, enormous quantities of N2O get released when the 24.66 billion pounds of synthetic nitrogen is applied to farmland every year. Nitrous oxide is 310 times more damaging as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Every year, U.S. farmers use enough synthetic nitrogen to fill more than 12,330, railroad boxcars with a capacity of 200,000 pounds each.
Consequently, farmers and supermarkets that tout their products as local and pesticide-free, while still using synthetic fertilizers, are engaged in greenwashing. Non-organic farms poisoning the environment with chemical fertilizers are a far cry from safe or environmentally friendly, even though they promote themselves as pesticide-free and local.
“Local” Factory Farms and CAFOs: Destroying Public Health and Climate Stability
According to Wal-Mart and Food Inc.’s definition of local (anything produced within a 400-mile radius), meat, dairy, and eggs, reared on a diet of GMO grains, slaughterhouse waste, and antibiotics, qualify as “local.” According to the USDA, the majority of the nation’s non-organic meat, dairy and eggs are now produced on massive factory farms, euphemistically called Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). 6 CAFOs are typically overcrowded, filthy, disease ridden, and inhumane, not only for the hapless animals imprisoned inside their walls, but also for the typically non-union, exploited, immigrant workers who toil in these hellish facilities. According to the EPA, the legal definition of a CAFO is a farm or a feedlot where large numbers of animals are confined and reared, beef – 1000 head; dairy – 700 head; swine – 2500 pigs weighing more than 55 lbs; poultry – 125,000 broilers or 82,000 laying hens or pullets.
Unfortunately meat, dairy, or eggs coming from CAFOs in North America are not required by law to be labeled as such. Greenwashing CAFO products as “natural” or “local” is a major source of profits for Wal-Mart, Cargill, Conagra, Perdue, Land O’ Lakes, Kraft, McDonald’s, KFC, Monsanto and chemica/GMOl farmers and ranchers. Organic consumers, farmers, and retailers need to educate the public about the hazards and inhumanity of factory farms and CAFOs. These animal factories, where GMO feed and drugs are force-fed to most of the nation's livestock and poultry, are not only poisoning consumers, but are also generating massive amounts of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases, especially methane, which is 72 times more destructive per ton than CO2. Methane (CH4) pollution is responsible for approximately 14% of human-induced global warming.
Where does methane pollution come from? Methane pollution mainly comes from factory farms and the overproduction of non-organic meat, dairy, and eggs, from throwing hundreds of millions of tons of rotting food, paper, and lawn wastes into landfills (instead of composting them for use on farms, ranches, and gardens), and the destruction of wetlands for shrimp and fish farms, industrial agriculture, chemical-intensive rice farming, and urban development or sprawl.
How do we get rid of excess, climate-destabilizing methane? By purchasing organic foods, especially those produced by family farmers and ranchers in our regions, and by increasing consumer awareness that it is unhealthy and inhumane to purchase factory farm foods. It is becoming increasingly clear that buying or consuming meat, dairy, or eggs that come from a factory farm or CAFO is an ethical abomination and a climate crime. While calling for a boycott of factory-farmed products we must deliver the positive message that the organic, humane, healthy, food producing small farms and ranches of North America are actually greenhouse gas sequestration centers, arguably our most important allies in cooling off the planet.
Millions of consumers are still "in the dark" about how "conventional" foods--especially the cheaper brands of animal products, processed, fast, and fake foods--are produced. We must educate the public about the need to fight for Truth-in-Labeling so that CAFO products, derived in great measure from Monsanto’s GMO crops, are no longer greenwashed as “local” or “natural.”
Food Miles and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Food miles are the average miles that food travels from the farm to the consumer. Since more than 80% of the U.S. grocery purchases are now processed foods, a huge percentage of the carbon or fossil fuel footprint of industrial agriculture comes from transporting factory farm crops or animals to the processing plant or slaughterhouse and then transporting these processed foods from the processing plant to the dinner table via the supermarket. By reducing the processed foods in our diet we can greatly reduce the food miles or carbon footprint for which our households are responsible, since the shorter the distance food travels, the lower the greenhouse gas emissions.
Part of the locavore ethic is to get people to eat from their own food shed, to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate the local economy. But, real “local” is also about stimulating a return to in-home food preparation, an appreciation for taste, and the joy in cooking—and eating. As folks begin to appreciate the taste of locally grown fresh organic foods, their dependence on processed foods from afar usually dwindles.
The 20% of the U.S. diet that is not processed food includes fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, farm raised meats, eggs, whole grains, cold pressed oils, raw honey, syrup, natural sugars, etc. Though only 20% of the total food budget, the sales of non-processed food are huge! Unfortunately, production of non-processed foods is largely regional with production concentrated on the southern half of both coasts and the southwest. So, even a majority of the fresh foods come from afar. This requires lots of trucking and refrigeration to get the food to local markets the across the country.
“Fresh food miles” indeed contribute to the high CO2 emissions from the U.S. food system, but these whole foods are certainly not the major greenhouse gas contributor in our food system. That dubious honor belongs to factory-farmed meat, eggs, and milk, which generate 30 to 50% of all of the U.S. greenhouse gasses, more than industry and fossil fuels combined. 7
Fortunately, locally and nationally, farmers have worked out strategies of how to grow fresh foods in the middle of the winter with better technology and a minimum of heat, even in extremely cold places like Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, and Montana. Consequently, farmers and consumers are growing and storing food throughout the year so that they are not responsible for so many food miles on their tables.
Our thesis is that a majority of our food miles could be chopped off if we prepare more of our food from local ingredients. But, that begs another question. What kind of local ingredients?
Chemical and Local versus Organic and Local
Some growers and brokers argue that local, chemically grown is better than fresh organic, because so much that is organic travels long distances from the two coasts. If they are talking about comparing supermarket fresh organic with fresh chemically grown local, we should still choose supermarket organic, because, whether they are used locally or nationally, pesticides and fertilizers are more dangerous and deadly to your health and the health of the environment than chemically-free organic foods transported from outside your local region.
Chemical farmers are not inspected or reprimanded by the federal or state governments as to their use or abuse of pesticides or fertilizers unless there is an accident, whether they are local farmers or factory farmers from California, Florida, or China. The only way the abusers are caught is when there is a fish kill, a labor poisoning, a recall after multiple poisonings, or some other notable injury as a result of a spill, overuse, or carelessness.
By contrast, organic growers are inspected every year and can be inspected at any time the certifying agency or the federal government (USDA) deems it appropriate. These are the rules in California, Vermont, Chile, and all countries that grow and market certified organic products. Because organic farms are inspected (at least once a year), and their soil and water checked for toxins, consumers can be secure that the organic products are the safest on the market. Consumers can be confident that organic food does not contain poisonous pesticide residues, did not poison farmworkers, and was not grown with a fertilizer that trashed the soil, the water, the atmosphere, and the oceans.
Organic farming is a set of techniques and strategies that encourage the life to come back into the soil and into our food. Chemical fertilizers kill soil life and inhibit the accumulation of organic matter (plant residues in the soil). Chemical food has less life force because chemicals kill soil microorganisms and earthworms. Organic matter is critical to organic farmers because nutrients cling to organic matter, so the plant roots can efficiently find and mine nutrients and water at those spots.
Organic farmers add nutrients such as lime, rock phosphate, potash, and sulfur in an effort to get the soil balanced so that the maximum amount of all nutrients and water are available to foraging plant roots. This soil-balancing act is a constant process. On light and sandy soils, organic matter must be replaced every year by growing a fertilizer crop and by adding small amounts of compost, which has billions of soil microorganisms. These critters go to work breaking down the organic matter and making it available to plant roots while constantly adding to the fertility by defecating the digested organic matter (and they work 24-7, not 9 to 5).
To control pests, organic farmers rotate their crops, so that pests do not build up from continuous monocropping. Instead of toxic pesticides, organic growers use beneficial insects as predators and parasites on pests. They use bacterial sprays for certain worms and beetles. They spray clay on their apples and other fruits. They use insect traps and lures. And, they use trap crops that the insects like better than the main crop. They use disease resistant crops that are immune or less prone to disease. And, they monitor their fields often so that they can spot problems early.
The Gold Standard: Local and Organic
Local organic food and farming are the gold standard. Organic farmers gladly adhere to a set of regulations, use non-toxic products, and accept the need to be scrutinized by an independent third party inspector. Why? Because, regulation of food safety is essential to guaranteeing consumers that the farmer has their health and well being at the center of his or her business plan. The organic regulatory process is neither easy nor happily anticipated by the farmer. But it is necessary! It is our covenant with our customers.
There are no regulations governing “local” chemically grown or GMO-derived food. Anything goes! Nobody is inspecting the farm! Nobody is watching the store! As customer, you must also be the regulator of non-organic food. Instead of depending on a regulator, you as customer should ask the “local” growers what they used as a fertilizer source, how they controlled pests and diseases, and what chemicals they used to stimulate yield.
When the local chemical grower tells you that local is better than organic, tell them that they should switch to organic so that you can trust their food to be safe, clean, inspected, and environmentally friendly. Local food is not the gold standard, and may not even be safe. Local-organic is the gold standard.
By WILL ALLEN, KATE DUESTERBERG and RONNIE CUMMINS
Those who espouse local food are now called “locavores.” But, beyond the greenwashing and co-opting of the term by Wal-Mart, the supermarket chains, and factory farms and feedlots, what does “local” food and farming really mean? What is the impact of non-organic local food and farming on public health, nutrition, soil, water, marine life, biodiversity, and climate?
Jessica Prentice coined the term locavore for World Environment Day in 2005 to promote local eating, and local consumption in general. Her goal was to challenge people to obtain as much food as possible from within a one hundred mile radius. Her success was more than she imagined. In 2007 the New Oxford American Dictionary selected “locavore” as its word of the year. Local had arrived!
Then, the highly respected author Barbara Kingsolver published Animal Vegetable, Miracle emphasizing the value of eating locally, and the concept spread like wildfire. 3 While the eat local/buy local concept is increasingly popular, looking beyond the label or the marketing claims, it is obvious that “local” is a rather fuzzy concept, lacking in most cases a concrete definition or a set of principles and guidelines.
By contrast, the organic system of food production has legal definitions, a handbook of rules, permitted and prohibited substances, acceptable practices, an inspection process, and labels to guide the consumers. Local has none of these guidelines, rules, inspections or protections. It has the cachet of popularity without any guarantee of safety or sustainability.
Some chemical farmers, and even poultry, egg, pork, dairy, or beef operators feeding their animals genetically modified (GMO) grains, claim that local is better than organic, because it stimulates the local economy and reduces the distance (food miles) that food travels between the farm or feedlot and your table. But does so-called local farming, utilizing toxic pesticides, GMO seeds and feed, chemical fertilizers, and animal drugs mean that the food is safe and sustainable? Obviously not. We believe that there shouldn’t have to be a choice between local and safe organic; but rather that consumers should look for food that is not only local or regionally produced, but food that is also organic and therefore safe and sustainable. Local and chemical, or local using GMO seeds and feed, is nothing more than greenwashing. Organic and local is the new gold standard!
The locavore phenomenon brings up several important concerns including: food miles, chemically grown food, greenhouse gas emissions, factory farming, genetically engineered animal feed, and the value of organic labeling. All of these crucial issues relate to the central question: what should be in your market basket?
Does Local Mean Safe?
Despite the increasing popularity of the eat-local movement, many people do not understand that “local” does not necessarily mean that food is organic or even safe. Chemically grown foods produced locally may be cheaper than organic and may aid the local economy. But they pollute the ground water, kill the soil food web, and decrease the soil’s ability to sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gasses, broadcast pesticides into the air, poison farmworkers, and incrementally poison consumers with toxic residues on their foods. “Local” pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and chemical fertilizers are just as poisonous as those used in California, Mexico, Chile, or China.
Frequently, local chemical farmers claim that they only use “less toxic” pesticides or herbicides such as Monsanto’s Roundup. Unfortunately, “less toxic” is a dangerously relative term! Roundup is a powerful weed-killer, and is now sprayed so heavily on the nation’s 150 million acres of genetically engineered crops that it is poisoning our water supplies, killing the soil, and creating superweeds that can only be killed with super-toxic herbicides such as 2,4 D, arsenic and paraquat. Farmers in the U.S. have used everything from arsenic, lead, cyanide, fluorine, DDT, and nerve poisons since the 1860s, and they still use massive amounts. More than 80% of all the pesticides currently used in vegetable, fruit, and flower production are nerve poisons that were used on insects and also on concentration camp victims during the first and second World Wars.
Organophosphate pesticides or nerve poisons have been linked to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. Organophosphate nerve poisons were found in the urine and saliva of Seattle preschool children who were eating conventional (chemical) and local food from off the shelf. When the kids stopped eating chemical food and ate organic food the organophosphates disappeared from their saliva and urine. When the children returned to the chemical diet, the nerve poisons showed up in their urine and saliva again.4 Nerve poisons, whether they are used on foods that are locally, nationally, or internationally produced and distributed are dangerous hazards, especially for growing children and at-risk populations. They need to be driven off the market, as soon as possible.
Does “Pesticide Free” Mean Safe or Sustainable?
Often, growers at farmers markets will say, “ I don’t use pesticides, I only use chemical fertilizers.” Sadly, what many people do not realize is that chemical fertilizers are extremely hazardous. A high percentage of these fertilizers seep into our wells and municipal drinking water, or else run off into our streams, rivers, and finally end up in the ocean. Two-thirds of the nation’s drinking water is contaminated with hazardous levels of nitrogen fertilizer. Non-organic farmers and feedlot operators are literally poisoning us and our children with the collateral damage of chemical fertilizers. High nitrogen and phosphorous levels in rivers and oceans kill fish and other marine wildlife. When this enormous amount of excess nitrogen enters the ocean it causes dead zones and oceanic acidification.
Some “pesticide free” growers will argue that since they only use chemical fertilizers, their produce is cleaner. Their food may not have high pesticide residues. But, remind them that cleaner isn’t clean! And inform your local chemical farmer that their toxic fertilizer is polluting our drinking water, trashing the oceans, killing the soil’s ability to sequester greenhouse gases, destabilizing the nitrogen cycle of plants, and emitting billions of pounds of deadly greenhouse gasses every year. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is perhaps the most potent greenhouse gas emitter in the U.S. To produce each pound of fertilizer, 6.6 pounds of nitrous oxide (N2O) are emitted. Nitrous oxide accounts for a full ten percent of all climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases.
Nitrous oxide is extremely hazardous. It depletes the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere (thereby increasing skin cancer for humans). It increases ozone pollution levels at the ground level (fueling the current epidemic of asthma and respiratory diseases.) Poisonous nitrate fertilizers leaching into our rural wells and municipal drinking water supplies (where it combines into a super-toxic brew with pesticides) are a biological time bomb, a major cause of cancer, infertility, hormone disruption, and birth defects.
Perhaps most deadly of all, nitrate fertilizer kills our living soils and soil microorganisms, decreasing their ability to sequester (through plant photosynthesis) excess greenhouse gasses in the soil. Even after a century of industrial farmers dumping hundreds of billions of pounds of chemical fertilizers on farmlands, our living soils still contain two to three times as much carbon as the atmosphere, with the practical capacity to clean and safely sequester a considerable amount of greenhouse gases over the next 40 years. In other words, our living soils can save us—but only if we stop the widespread use of nitrate fertilizers, GMO crops, and pesticides and replace these deadly chemicals and mutant organisms with organic compost, compost tea, and cover crops, augmented by the biological power and fertility generated by organic, carefully planned, high-density rotational grazing of animals.
The energy-intensive manufacturing of nitrate fertilizers requires the use of massive amounts of natural gas, a resource in short supply, that will increasingly be needed to take us through the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy. We can no longer afford to waste natural gas in order to uphold the profits of Cargill, Monsanto, and Food Inc. We can no longer afford to have chemical-intensive food and farming greenwashed as “local.”
U.S. non-organic farmers used an average of 24 billion, 661 million pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer per year from 1998 to 2007. That means that more than one hundred sixty-two billion, seven hundred sixty-two million pounds of nitrous oxide (N2O) are released each year in the process of manufacturing that fertilizer. 5 Also released is the CO2 from transporting the fertilizer. Since 70% of synthetic nitrogen is imported, the transportation cost is increasingly higher each year. Beyond production and transportation emissions, enormous quantities of N2O get released when the 24.66 billion pounds of synthetic nitrogen is applied to farmland every year. Nitrous oxide is 310 times more damaging as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Every year, U.S. farmers use enough synthetic nitrogen to fill more than 12,330, railroad boxcars with a capacity of 200,000 pounds each.
Consequently, farmers and supermarkets that tout their products as local and pesticide-free, while still using synthetic fertilizers, are engaged in greenwashing. Non-organic farms poisoning the environment with chemical fertilizers are a far cry from safe or environmentally friendly, even though they promote themselves as pesticide-free and local.
“Local” Factory Farms and CAFOs: Destroying Public Health and Climate Stability
According to Wal-Mart and Food Inc.’s definition of local (anything produced within a 400-mile radius), meat, dairy, and eggs, reared on a diet of GMO grains, slaughterhouse waste, and antibiotics, qualify as “local.” According to the USDA, the majority of the nation’s non-organic meat, dairy and eggs are now produced on massive factory farms, euphemistically called Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). 6 CAFOs are typically overcrowded, filthy, disease ridden, and inhumane, not only for the hapless animals imprisoned inside their walls, but also for the typically non-union, exploited, immigrant workers who toil in these hellish facilities. According to the EPA, the legal definition of a CAFO is a farm or a feedlot where large numbers of animals are confined and reared, beef – 1000 head; dairy – 700 head; swine – 2500 pigs weighing more than 55 lbs; poultry – 125,000 broilers or 82,000 laying hens or pullets.
Unfortunately meat, dairy, or eggs coming from CAFOs in North America are not required by law to be labeled as such. Greenwashing CAFO products as “natural” or “local” is a major source of profits for Wal-Mart, Cargill, Conagra, Perdue, Land O’ Lakes, Kraft, McDonald’s, KFC, Monsanto and chemica/GMOl farmers and ranchers. Organic consumers, farmers, and retailers need to educate the public about the hazards and inhumanity of factory farms and CAFOs. These animal factories, where GMO feed and drugs are force-fed to most of the nation's livestock and poultry, are not only poisoning consumers, but are also generating massive amounts of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases, especially methane, which is 72 times more destructive per ton than CO2. Methane (CH4) pollution is responsible for approximately 14% of human-induced global warming.
Where does methane pollution come from? Methane pollution mainly comes from factory farms and the overproduction of non-organic meat, dairy, and eggs, from throwing hundreds of millions of tons of rotting food, paper, and lawn wastes into landfills (instead of composting them for use on farms, ranches, and gardens), and the destruction of wetlands for shrimp and fish farms, industrial agriculture, chemical-intensive rice farming, and urban development or sprawl.
How do we get rid of excess, climate-destabilizing methane? By purchasing organic foods, especially those produced by family farmers and ranchers in our regions, and by increasing consumer awareness that it is unhealthy and inhumane to purchase factory farm foods. It is becoming increasingly clear that buying or consuming meat, dairy, or eggs that come from a factory farm or CAFO is an ethical abomination and a climate crime. While calling for a boycott of factory-farmed products we must deliver the positive message that the organic, humane, healthy, food producing small farms and ranches of North America are actually greenhouse gas sequestration centers, arguably our most important allies in cooling off the planet.
Millions of consumers are still "in the dark" about how "conventional" foods--especially the cheaper brands of animal products, processed, fast, and fake foods--are produced. We must educate the public about the need to fight for Truth-in-Labeling so that CAFO products, derived in great measure from Monsanto’s GMO crops, are no longer greenwashed as “local” or “natural.”
Food Miles and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Food miles are the average miles that food travels from the farm to the consumer. Since more than 80% of the U.S. grocery purchases are now processed foods, a huge percentage of the carbon or fossil fuel footprint of industrial agriculture comes from transporting factory farm crops or animals to the processing plant or slaughterhouse and then transporting these processed foods from the processing plant to the dinner table via the supermarket. By reducing the processed foods in our diet we can greatly reduce the food miles or carbon footprint for which our households are responsible, since the shorter the distance food travels, the lower the greenhouse gas emissions.
Part of the locavore ethic is to get people to eat from their own food shed, to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate the local economy. But, real “local” is also about stimulating a return to in-home food preparation, an appreciation for taste, and the joy in cooking—and eating. As folks begin to appreciate the taste of locally grown fresh organic foods, their dependence on processed foods from afar usually dwindles.
The 20% of the U.S. diet that is not processed food includes fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, farm raised meats, eggs, whole grains, cold pressed oils, raw honey, syrup, natural sugars, etc. Though only 20% of the total food budget, the sales of non-processed food are huge! Unfortunately, production of non-processed foods is largely regional with production concentrated on the southern half of both coasts and the southwest. So, even a majority of the fresh foods come from afar. This requires lots of trucking and refrigeration to get the food to local markets the across the country.
“Fresh food miles” indeed contribute to the high CO2 emissions from the U.S. food system, but these whole foods are certainly not the major greenhouse gas contributor in our food system. That dubious honor belongs to factory-farmed meat, eggs, and milk, which generate 30 to 50% of all of the U.S. greenhouse gasses, more than industry and fossil fuels combined. 7
Fortunately, locally and nationally, farmers have worked out strategies of how to grow fresh foods in the middle of the winter with better technology and a minimum of heat, even in extremely cold places like Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, and Montana. Consequently, farmers and consumers are growing and storing food throughout the year so that they are not responsible for so many food miles on their tables.
Our thesis is that a majority of our food miles could be chopped off if we prepare more of our food from local ingredients. But, that begs another question. What kind of local ingredients?
Chemical and Local versus Organic and Local
Some growers and brokers argue that local, chemically grown is better than fresh organic, because so much that is organic travels long distances from the two coasts. If they are talking about comparing supermarket fresh organic with fresh chemically grown local, we should still choose supermarket organic, because, whether they are used locally or nationally, pesticides and fertilizers are more dangerous and deadly to your health and the health of the environment than chemically-free organic foods transported from outside your local region.
Chemical farmers are not inspected or reprimanded by the federal or state governments as to their use or abuse of pesticides or fertilizers unless there is an accident, whether they are local farmers or factory farmers from California, Florida, or China. The only way the abusers are caught is when there is a fish kill, a labor poisoning, a recall after multiple poisonings, or some other notable injury as a result of a spill, overuse, or carelessness.
By contrast, organic growers are inspected every year and can be inspected at any time the certifying agency or the federal government (USDA) deems it appropriate. These are the rules in California, Vermont, Chile, and all countries that grow and market certified organic products. Because organic farms are inspected (at least once a year), and their soil and water checked for toxins, consumers can be secure that the organic products are the safest on the market. Consumers can be confident that organic food does not contain poisonous pesticide residues, did not poison farmworkers, and was not grown with a fertilizer that trashed the soil, the water, the atmosphere, and the oceans.
Organic farming is a set of techniques and strategies that encourage the life to come back into the soil and into our food. Chemical fertilizers kill soil life and inhibit the accumulation of organic matter (plant residues in the soil). Chemical food has less life force because chemicals kill soil microorganisms and earthworms. Organic matter is critical to organic farmers because nutrients cling to organic matter, so the plant roots can efficiently find and mine nutrients and water at those spots.
Organic farmers add nutrients such as lime, rock phosphate, potash, and sulfur in an effort to get the soil balanced so that the maximum amount of all nutrients and water are available to foraging plant roots. This soil-balancing act is a constant process. On light and sandy soils, organic matter must be replaced every year by growing a fertilizer crop and by adding small amounts of compost, which has billions of soil microorganisms. These critters go to work breaking down the organic matter and making it available to plant roots while constantly adding to the fertility by defecating the digested organic matter (and they work 24-7, not 9 to 5).
To control pests, organic farmers rotate their crops, so that pests do not build up from continuous monocropping. Instead of toxic pesticides, organic growers use beneficial insects as predators and parasites on pests. They use bacterial sprays for certain worms and beetles. They spray clay on their apples and other fruits. They use insect traps and lures. And, they use trap crops that the insects like better than the main crop. They use disease resistant crops that are immune or less prone to disease. And, they monitor their fields often so that they can spot problems early.
The Gold Standard: Local and Organic
Local organic food and farming are the gold standard. Organic farmers gladly adhere to a set of regulations, use non-toxic products, and accept the need to be scrutinized by an independent third party inspector. Why? Because, regulation of food safety is essential to guaranteeing consumers that the farmer has their health and well being at the center of his or her business plan. The organic regulatory process is neither easy nor happily anticipated by the farmer. But it is necessary! It is our covenant with our customers.
There are no regulations governing “local” chemically grown or GMO-derived food. Anything goes! Nobody is inspecting the farm! Nobody is watching the store! As customer, you must also be the regulator of non-organic food. Instead of depending on a regulator, you as customer should ask the “local” growers what they used as a fertilizer source, how they controlled pests and diseases, and what chemicals they used to stimulate yield.
When the local chemical grower tells you that local is better than organic, tell them that they should switch to organic so that you can trust their food to be safe, clean, inspected, and environmentally friendly. Local food is not the gold standard, and may not even be safe. Local-organic is the gold standard.
By WILL ALLEN, KATE DUESTERBERG and RONNIE CUMMINS
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
More farmers are converting from conventional agriculture to organic production
Transitioning to organic farming
Study attempts to establish cost-effective approaches when reducing tillage in transitional and organic hay and forage production
MADISON, WI FEBRUARY 22, 2011 – As the organic food trend continues to grow; more farmers are converting from conventional agriculture to organic production. One of the fastest growing markets in the U.S. is the production of organic milk. The growth of this industry has prompted many farmers to transition their land to organic feed grain production. With transition on the rise, it is necessary for these farmers to have effective and economical organic management practices.
A research team led by scientists from Penn State University and University of New Hampshire conducted a four-year study examining the impact of reduced-tillage and cover crops managed for hay and forage production on the agronomic and economic performance of feed grain production.
Two cropping system experiments were carried out in central Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2007. For the first year both plots rotated between a cover crop, corn and soybeans; one plot was managed with full tillage and the other with reduced tillage. Changes in weed populations, crop yields, and economic returns over the three year rotation were monitored by the research team.
From a weed management perspective, the results indicate that utilizing reduced tillage for organic production could present a challenge for some farmers. Weed populations were less responsive to the choice in cover crop than to the reduction in tillage. Weed populations dramatically increased in reduced tillage systems.
"This is a troubling result because the weed populations that increased included perennial species such as Canada thistle and bindweed which are very difficult to control without tillage once they become established. In a way, these perennial weeds can actually act as 'management drivers,' forcing organic growers to have to periodically utilize more intensive tillage practices to reduce their populations," says Richard Smith, University of New Hampshire.
The study also suggests that growers who want to transition to organic production while minimizing tillage may experience variable economic success depending on how they begin their rotation. Costs associated with manure and compost, which was purchased off-farm, also strongly influenced the economics of the systems. The authors conclude that integrated systems that include field crop and dairy production, where manure sources are available on-site or locally, would improve the economics of these systems. While tillage did not have a significant effect on cumulative net returns in either experiment, there did appear to be a trend for higher returns in the rotations that utilized full-tillage.
According to Smith, further research will be necessary to determine the most cost-effective approaches to reducing tillage in transitional and organic production systems. Research is ongoing at Penn State University.
### Information
The full study can be found in the January/February 2011 issue of Agronomy Journal.
Contact: Sara Uttech
suttech@sciencesocieties.org
608-256-7429
American Society of Agronomy
Study attempts to establish cost-effective approaches when reducing tillage in transitional and organic hay and forage production
MADISON, WI FEBRUARY 22, 2011 – As the organic food trend continues to grow; more farmers are converting from conventional agriculture to organic production. One of the fastest growing markets in the U.S. is the production of organic milk. The growth of this industry has prompted many farmers to transition their land to organic feed grain production. With transition on the rise, it is necessary for these farmers to have effective and economical organic management practices.
A research team led by scientists from Penn State University and University of New Hampshire conducted a four-year study examining the impact of reduced-tillage and cover crops managed for hay and forage production on the agronomic and economic performance of feed grain production.
Two cropping system experiments were carried out in central Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2007. For the first year both plots rotated between a cover crop, corn and soybeans; one plot was managed with full tillage and the other with reduced tillage. Changes in weed populations, crop yields, and economic returns over the three year rotation were monitored by the research team.
From a weed management perspective, the results indicate that utilizing reduced tillage for organic production could present a challenge for some farmers. Weed populations were less responsive to the choice in cover crop than to the reduction in tillage. Weed populations dramatically increased in reduced tillage systems.
"This is a troubling result because the weed populations that increased included perennial species such as Canada thistle and bindweed which are very difficult to control without tillage once they become established. In a way, these perennial weeds can actually act as 'management drivers,' forcing organic growers to have to periodically utilize more intensive tillage practices to reduce their populations," says Richard Smith, University of New Hampshire.
The study also suggests that growers who want to transition to organic production while minimizing tillage may experience variable economic success depending on how they begin their rotation. Costs associated with manure and compost, which was purchased off-farm, also strongly influenced the economics of the systems. The authors conclude that integrated systems that include field crop and dairy production, where manure sources are available on-site or locally, would improve the economics of these systems. While tillage did not have a significant effect on cumulative net returns in either experiment, there did appear to be a trend for higher returns in the rotations that utilized full-tillage.
According to Smith, further research will be necessary to determine the most cost-effective approaches to reducing tillage in transitional and organic production systems. Research is ongoing at Penn State University.
### Information
The full study can be found in the January/February 2011 issue of Agronomy Journal.
Contact: Sara Uttech
suttech@sciencesocieties.org
608-256-7429
American Society of Agronomy
Friday, February 18, 2011
Farmers simply need to change.
Farmers simply need to change.
Three decades of concentrated use of chemical nutrient and salt based fertilisers are now leaching and threatening our waterways.. Farmers could prevent leaching by simply using alternative farming practices that not only maintain production but look after our environment as well. Farmers only need to change the way they treat their soil. By applying natural fertilisers that encourage healthier levels of microbial activity in the soil. This will capture and digests nitrates and phosphates naturally, holding them in the soil and preventing them from being leached. A thick living humus top soil that works a bit like a living working sponge. By simply changing the type of fertiliser being applied farms will quickly revitalise the soil and begin to stop the flow of toxic nutrient runoff into our waterways. Natural farming systems on farms surrounding waterways can stop farm nitrates and phosphate leaching at its source. Where riparian zone planting is merely a filter at the end and does not address the problem. Much like an ambulance at the bottom off the cliff. And like car filter will eventually clog up and will need to be replaced over time. But combining both riparian planting with natural fertiliser use on the land itself will bring back the soil to life and revitalise the waterways much more efficiently. But of course farmers politicians and local council representatives need to be brave and think outside the square for this to happen. A tall ask when theres so much money still being made in the chemical fertiliser industry owned by farmers. Then again the world is having to change its mind set on environmental pollutors and we will need to change with it or pay the price. My advice to farmers would be to change now rather than later.
Rusty Kane
Leader of The People's Choice Party
New Zealand.
Three decades of concentrated use of chemical nutrient and salt based fertilisers are now leaching and threatening our waterways.. Farmers could prevent leaching by simply using alternative farming practices that not only maintain production but look after our environment as well. Farmers only need to change the way they treat their soil. By applying natural fertilisers that encourage healthier levels of microbial activity in the soil. This will capture and digests nitrates and phosphates naturally, holding them in the soil and preventing them from being leached. A thick living humus top soil that works a bit like a living working sponge. By simply changing the type of fertiliser being applied farms will quickly revitalise the soil and begin to stop the flow of toxic nutrient runoff into our waterways. Natural farming systems on farms surrounding waterways can stop farm nitrates and phosphate leaching at its source. Where riparian zone planting is merely a filter at the end and does not address the problem. Much like an ambulance at the bottom off the cliff. And like car filter will eventually clog up and will need to be replaced over time. But combining both riparian planting with natural fertiliser use on the land itself will bring back the soil to life and revitalise the waterways much more efficiently. But of course farmers politicians and local council representatives need to be brave and think outside the square for this to happen. A tall ask when theres so much money still being made in the chemical fertiliser industry owned by farmers. Then again the world is having to change its mind set on environmental pollutors and we will need to change with it or pay the price. My advice to farmers would be to change now rather than later.
Rusty Kane
Leader of The People's Choice Party
New Zealand.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Dairy cow breeding goes organic.
It just got a lot easier to breed organic dairy cows.
Dairy farmer owned cooperative, Livestock Improvement (LIC), recently gained certification as approved suppliers into organic systems.
Until now artificial breeding choices for the country's organic dairy farmers have been limited to organically processed semen from a small select range of bulls, now LIC is certified as an input into organic systems opening the door to more than 80 organic dairy farmers to the cooperative’s elite teams of artificial breeding bulls.
LIC’s General Manager Genetics, Peter Gatley says all LIC produced semen from LIC bulls has been Organic Input Certified by BioGro New Zealand.
“Organic input certification is a lengthy process which ensures our semen products meet required international standards, for example that there is no GE (genetic engineering) and that LIC’s processes and practices are environmentally sustainable.
“Organic dairy farming is a business like any other and cows therefore need to be profitable. Having the ability to access the country’s best bulls gives organic farmers the same options their traditional counterparts have - access to the best genetics to improve their herd's productivity and profitability.”
Because certified organic farmers cannot use antibiotics for illnesses and hormones to make a cow cycle, breeding a cow which is resistant to disease, and calves naturally every 365 days, is of utmost importance.
“Under an organic system desirable traits will include disease resistance (for example mastitis), fertility, longevity, high feed conversion efficiency, foraging ability, temperament, high production levels and low Somatic Cell Count (SCC).
“The quickest and surest way to breed animals suited to an organic situation is to use artificial breeding as it gives farmers access to the best bulls in the country, minimises the risk of an outbreak of a sexually transmitted disease, and reduces the human safety risks associated with keeping bulls on farm."
Dairy farmer owned cooperative, Livestock Improvement (LIC), recently gained certification as approved suppliers into organic systems.
Until now artificial breeding choices for the country's organic dairy farmers have been limited to organically processed semen from a small select range of bulls, now LIC is certified as an input into organic systems opening the door to more than 80 organic dairy farmers to the cooperative’s elite teams of artificial breeding bulls.
LIC’s General Manager Genetics, Peter Gatley says all LIC produced semen from LIC bulls has been Organic Input Certified by BioGro New Zealand.
“Organic input certification is a lengthy process which ensures our semen products meet required international standards, for example that there is no GE (genetic engineering) and that LIC’s processes and practices are environmentally sustainable.
“Organic dairy farming is a business like any other and cows therefore need to be profitable. Having the ability to access the country’s best bulls gives organic farmers the same options their traditional counterparts have - access to the best genetics to improve their herd's productivity and profitability.”
Because certified organic farmers cannot use antibiotics for illnesses and hormones to make a cow cycle, breeding a cow which is resistant to disease, and calves naturally every 365 days, is of utmost importance.
“Under an organic system desirable traits will include disease resistance (for example mastitis), fertility, longevity, high feed conversion efficiency, foraging ability, temperament, high production levels and low Somatic Cell Count (SCC).
“The quickest and surest way to breed animals suited to an organic situation is to use artificial breeding as it gives farmers access to the best bulls in the country, minimises the risk of an outbreak of a sexually transmitted disease, and reduces the human safety risks associated with keeping bulls on farm."
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