Bad Bull Good Bull (Dog) Max implementing his own personal recycling program at Farm Day 05

What’s Growing This Week:  Baby Carrots Asian Pears--- % Garlic Sweet dumpling Squash Red Watermelon Sweet peppers Tomatoes  Onions (M, L) Zucchini (M) Grapes (L) Basil (L) Orange honeydew (L) !There may be substitutions             all items are in all box sizes,unless marked

SEPTEMBER IS…
National Food Safety Education Month.  No kidding.  So what are we learning this year?  We are learning that the news media — seems better at scaring people than informing them.

There are no winners in the spinach  contamination.  Health-conscious people have gotten sick, and worse, died.  Farmers in the Salinas area are plowing under their crops.  And the entire incident is going to scare many people away from eating a vegetable (or vegetables) that may have done more good for people’s health overall in the last ten years than harm.

The debate continues over whether or not organic methods have anything to do with the outbreak.  Natural Selections is claiming that their tracking system has so far identified all the poisonings as linked to conventional spinach, not organic (they produce both).  But the FDA is still unwilling to back this claim.  Meanwhile, the small but pervasive group of pundits paid by the chemical industry to smear organic farming are trotting out old, disproved claims that organic crops cause more food poisoning than conventional.

A few other voices are getting a chance to get the truth out, though.  In a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece, author Nina Planck exposes a devastating indictment of the real culprit in the Ecoli outbreak.  While all animal manure contains some strain of Ecoli or another, the virulent strain that makes people ill comes exclusively from one source — livestock that is fed grain instead of grass (hay).  The acid-loving Ecoli O157:H7 thrives in the grain-fed stomachs of cattle.  It is also impervious to the acids in human stomachs, unlike most Ecoli, which is why it makes us sick.

Ms. Planck makes the shocking revelation that the livestock industry could eliminate all potential for O157:H7 contamination of meat by feeding cattle grass instead of grain for just seven days before they are slaughtered.  Apparently this would be too expensive.

I am fairly certain that any certified organic spinach would not be contaminated by manure used as fertilizer, as this practice is illegal.  However, the virulent strain of Ecoli finds its way into surface and groundwater, which are used for irrigation, as well as directly into fields flooded during rainstorms.  While the Salinas Valley may be the Salad Bowl of America, like every other region in California, it is also home to livestock operations.

Feeding livestock grain is just one of several components of an industrial farming system that has numerous environmental and ethical problems, as has been well documented in books like Fast Food Nation.  Now, it seems that even vegetarians have to worry about getting sick because of these practices.
 The preventive use of antibiotics in confinement animal facilities compounds the problem.   This practice  "preferentially allows the growth of strains of bacteria that are resistant to drugs commonly used to treat human infections... "  Even some, seemingly unrelated health infections can be traced back to this practice.  For example, humans who ingest drug-resistent strains of salmonella can have those strains transfer their drug resistant properties to normal e.coli that is found in the human stomach.  A person who gets a bladder infection from this type of e.coli will find that they cannot be treated with conventional antiobiotics.

This is one of the clearest cases I can think of of “externalization of expenses”, whereby a single industry follows a practice to save money that ends up costing other industries and society heavily as a result.  The livestock industry would say that all Americans benefit from their “efficiency” because fast food burgers are so affordable.  And not only is the trend not being confronted, it is getting worse, as feedlots continue to grow in size — focusing the amount of raw manure in a particular area and increasing the possibilities for contamination of water there.

For the record, Terra Firma uses compost that is made partially from dairy manure.  We are confident that the composting process Neutralizes any antagonistic microbes.  Nonetheless, the supplying dairy primarily feeds their cows hay and grass.  And to the best of our knowledge, there are no confined cattle facilities upstream of our irrigation pumps in Lake Solano — which also provides the drinking water for much of Solano County (although that water is obviously treated by municipalities that use it).  We’ve never had anyone report an illness from any of our produce, and we will continue to stand behind its integrity.  Please let us know if you feel that we need to do more to ensure the safety of our crops and the health of our customers.

IN YOUR BOXES
Speaking of spinach, our first fall planting of that crop will be ready next week, and you will see a bag of it in your CSA boxes.  We hope it will receive a warm reception.

Since fall began last weekend, we felt it was appropriate to send along the first true crops of fall in your boxes today, winter squash and carrots.  The winter squash are Sweet Dumplings, cute green and white mini-pumpkins with a delicate and sweet flesh.  Easy to cook, just cut them in half and scoop out and discard the seeds.  Then brush the flesh with a little butter, bake and then serve in halves or quarters.  Unlike many winter squashes, Sweet Dumplings (as well as Delicata, which we will have in another two weeks) don’t keep well.  They begin losing their sugar a few weeks after harvest, and will get more and more starchy the longer they sit around.  If your squash is long, not round, then we ran out of Sweet Dumpling and you got Delicata early.   No problem, the texture and taste are very  much the same.

Some people might remember last fall and winter as one of our worst carrot seasons ever.  We’re doing better this year.  We have two large plantings that are up and established, and two more that should come up and grow nicely in the current weather.  We were happy to find that the Nantes carrots in the first planting were already sizing up, and we decided to send some along this week.  These carrots were planted in late July, just after the heat wave and right in time for a two week cool spell.  The way the fields look right now, we should have a steady supply of the beta-carotene filled roots through the winter.  Since our carrots are many subscribers’ favorite winter box item (especially the kids), we’re sure this is good news to most.

It’s been over a month since we’ve had any red watermelons for you, but the warm weather last week did a nice job of ripening one of our late-season plantings.  We hope to have at least one more week of watermelon for you, but that will depend on how well the plants hold up to the bugs, mildew, and weather in the next week or two.
.

Thanks,
  Pablito
 
 

Please make sure to include your account name, the one on the sign off sheet, in each and every correspondance.  Thank You!

Recipes............................

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We need seven days notice before a vacation hold or other change of service.
Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800, or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com.  Include your account name in full (what's on the sign off sheet).

Account Balance Inquiries The account sheet is hiding under the sign off sheet each week with your account balance on it.  Mid month I've been e-mailing statments, so if you're not getting it send me an e-mail requesting to be added to the list. To be able to read the statements you need to be logged in as an administrator on a PC, and virus programs may corrupt the file. Some Mac operating systems do allow the file to be viewed.  We can't resend them, and it wouldn't work any better the second time anyway.

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
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