Greetings!   

    Some readers may have noticed that for the last month or two, I've been focusing primarily on "farm news" instead of looking at other issues.  That's partly because the weather this year has created so many problems and unusual situations that it's been hard for me to focus on much else.  Spring is a very busy time at Terra Firma even when things are running smoothly and the weather is cooperating.

   Nonetheless, I have been following the E. Coli outbreak in Europe and the reactions it has generated here.  If you are interested in hearing one organic vegetable farmers take on it, here goes:   

    My primary response is always sadness when people get sick from eating fruit or vegetables.  In this case, I was also outraged that panicked government officials made erroneous proclamations that caused millions of pounds of perfectly safe vegetables to be destroyed -- also threatening the livelihood of thousands of farmers for no good reason.   It is impossible for me to imagine officials responding to a defect in Toyota vehicles by telling the public to avoid all Japanese cars. 

   Despite frequent criticism of the FDA and USDA, the agencies that are responsible for dealing with outbreaks of food borne illness in the U.S. appear far more effective than their European counterparts.  While public safety always must be the first priority in these situations, public health is also best served by minimizing the economic damage to agriculture.  The best way to do this is to quickly and confidently trace the source of the outbreak, recall the infected product, and quell public fears about the food we eat.

  Unfortunately, in my opinion most journalists in the U.S. still fail to cover food safety in a responsible, comprehensive fashion.  Most articles on the subject are full of scientific and factual errors.  And the opinion pieces I read still seem to focus on stronger regulation and enforcement, as if it would somehow be possible or even desirable for an enormous army of government agents to test every head of lettuce, tomato, and hamburger for every harmful microbe.  Just as unfortunate in my opinion is the tendency to point fingers at agriculture and the food industry.

   Most Americans want to eat lots of meat, and they want to get it cheap.  Livestock producers are providing it, but not without polluting the environment with (antibiotic resistant) E. Coli, Salmonella, and other microbes that end up getting into other food products.   Until this changes, a small percentage of people will continue to get very sick every year as a result, and the farmer or food producer whose product was contaminated by microbes will be held responsible instead of the ones who created the problem in the first place. 

Pablito

Where are the Spuds?

 The list of crops we grow in the spring that like cool, wet weather is pretty short, but potatoes might be at the top.  Most years, we plant our spring crop starting in late February, through March and into April.  They are harvested in June, July and August respectively.  This year, we didn't get our first potatoes in the ground until mid-April.   

Potato plants grow from potatoes, and unlike a seed or a small seedling, you can't plant a tuber an inch or two deep into a field that is barely dry.  You need the ground to be loose and reasonably dry at least 4 inches deep.  And  this year, that didn't happen at all in March (much less February).  Potatoes also have a tendency to rot if non-stop rain keeps the ground wet for an extended period before they have a chance to sprout.

Luckily for us, and you, the weather stayed dry for several weeks after we planted our spuds, and they grew amazingly quickly -- far more quickly than they normally do in our warm-to-hot springs.  I would go so far as to say that the potato field (pictured below), is the best looking field on the farm right now.

Yellow Finn (L) and Nicola (R)

yellow finns sizing up