UC Blog
New food safety law could hurt small farmers
A behind-the-scenes battle is raging in the Senate over how to regulate small and organic growers without ruining them - and still protect consumers from contaminated food, according to a story published yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The crux of the legislation gives the Food and Drug Administration greater authority to regulate how products are grown, stored, transported, inspected, traced from farm to table and recalled when needed.
"When you create microbial vacuums, they can be even more easily taken over by pathogenic organisms," Willey was quoted. "In organic agriculture, we depend tremendously on a cooperative effort with beneficial microorganisms. My whole soil fertility system is based on that. Actually, soil fertility planetwide is based on that."
The story noted that a UC Davis study last year by Shermain Hardesty and Yoko Kusunose found strict food safety regulations can put smaller growers at a disadvantage because their compliance costs are spread over fewer acres, the article reported. Hardesty said costs may be as high as $100 an acre.
Last summer, the House of Representatives passed stringent food safety legislation. Efforts to modify proposed rules to make compliance easier for small farms have been more successful in the Senate.
Ferd Hoefner, the policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the House bill would be a "complete disaster" for small farms.
If two versions of the law pass, Congress would work to merge them.
Small-scale producers may face compliance with tough laws.
More farmers using dust-reducing techniques
Farmers in the Central Valley are increasingly turning to "conservation tillage," a variety of practices that reduce soil disturbance and cut down on dust, according to a story in the Modesto Bee over the weekend.
The story, written by John Holland, said producers in nine valley counties were surveyed by the Conservation Tillage and Cropping Systems Workgroup, an alliance of farmers, researchers and industry representatives coordinated by UC Davis Cooperative Extension specialist Jeff Mitchell. The survey found that 64,613 acres were being cultivated using some form of conservation tillage in 2004; and 416,035 acres were in CT in 2008.
"My philosophy is that good environmental stewardship must be profitable to be sustainable," workgroup member and Hanford-area dairy farmer Dino Giacomazzi was quoted in the story. "Our conservation tillage program has been helpful to our family business during these hard economic times."Merced County UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Maxwell Norton posted a comment about the story on the Modesto Bee website.
"The contribution of agriculture to reducing dust pollution over the last 30 has been huge: less burning, less tillage of all types, cover crops in orchards and vineyards are commonplace, nut harvesting equipment is getting better, and roads are being treated," Norton wrote.
A CT system following tomatoes and before cotton planting.
High Sierra not the place for cattle, scientists say
A UC Davis emergency room doctor and the director of the UC Davis Tahoe Research Center have launched a publicity campaign calling for cattle grazing to be suspended in the high Sierra, according to a story in Sunday's Sacramento Bee.
The article, billed as a "Bee exclusive" and written by Tom Knudson, said the doctor, an avid backpacker, took hundreds of water samples from pristine streams and lakes in the Sierras. He found that high-elevation water bodies on land managed by the Forest Service had bacterial contamination high enough to sicken hikers with Giardia, E. coli and other diseases. However, at high elevations in Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks, where cattle do not graze, the lakes and streams were pollution-free.
Doctor Robert Derlet and Tahoe Research Center director Charles Goldman believe cattle should be moved to lower elevations and that high Sierra areas now managed by the Forest Service should be converted into national parks.
"At one time, cattle were important for developing civilization here," Derlet was quoted in the story. "But now, with 40 million people in California, the Sierra is not for cattle. It's for water. We need water more than Big Macs."
The story also quoted Anne Yose, the regional rangeland program manager for the Forest Service. She said Forest Service studies show that "we can still successfully manage livestock and maintain water quality."
However, she also acknowledged in the story that it is "logistically really, really difficult" for the Forest Service to sample backcountry water.
The article said Derlet devised an insulating nylon kit and procedure for keeping water samples fresh, which includes rushing back to his car, icing the samples in a cooler and driving directly to a UC Davis lab.
Cattle grazing on low lands.
Valley ozone story takes off
Research by UC Davis scientists that revealed a substantial amount of San Joaquin Valley ozone is generated by animal feed is getting wide coverage in the news media. Google News reported 126 articles on the subject.
Many newspapers ran the Associated Press version of the story, written by Fresno-based Tracie Cone. She reported that the study — funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, California Air Resources Board and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District — was initially intended to measure the impact of animal manure, urine and flatulence on ozone levels.
However, the researchers discovered that millions of tons of fermenting cattle feed bears greater responsibility.
Mark Grossi of the Fresno Bee noted in his story that the study was published last month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. This week's flurry of interest was generated by an April 21 news feed from the American Chemical Society press office. ACS publishes the journal.
In his story, Grossi wrote that the cattle feed explains only half of the Valley's ozone problem. The other half, Nitrogen oxide, or NOx, comes from vehicles. San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District believes NOx is more important to control, the Bee article said.Meanwhile, Capital Press reported yesterday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rescinded its long-standing exemptions for agriculture under emission-control rules.
"Air quality in the San Joaquin Valley is consistently among the worst in the nation," said Deborah Jordan, director of the Air Division for the EPA's Pacific Southwest region, in a statement. "New and modified facilities will now be subject to the most stringent requirements, which will contribute to the health of our communities."/span>/span>
A dairy cow eats its rations.
Animal feed generates lots of valley ozone
Scientists have been puzzled by the fact that the San Joaquin Valley often suffers high ozone levels even though the mostly rural, agricultural domain has fewer cars and trucks than big cities. Research by UC Davis scientists is now showing that some of the ozone in the valley is being generated by fermented animal feed, according to a story posted yesterday on the website Science News.
While ozone provides a protective barrier for the earth in the stratosphere, it is an unwelcome molecule to have around where people are breathing. Ozone (O3) is a powerful oxidizing agent, far stronger than O2. It can harm lung function and irritate the respiratory system.
The UC Davis team, led by environmental engineer Cody Howard, tested seven types of animal feed in a one-meter-square tented chamber, according to writer Janet Raloff, author of the Science News story. They added a mix of gases that matched the valley’s air and simulated sunlight with lamps. The result was lots of ozone.
Corn silage generated about 125 parts per billion ozone, alfalfa silage a little less, and mixed oat-wheat silage 210 ppb, Raloff reported. These emissions pale in comparison to cars. However, because the San Joaquin Valley has so much silage to feed its animal agriculture industry, the feed appears to be the single biggest contributor to the region’s ozone problem, the story said.
Cars and light-duty trucks in the valley can generate 13 metric tons of ozone per day, while feed for the valley’s 10 million head of dairy cattle can produce 24.5 million tons of ozone per day.
Corn silage livestock feed.