California Farms Get Testy Over Water Quality

By Melinda Burns

The world's most pervasive groundwater pollution problem - nitrate in drinking water - is under scrutiny in the richest farming region of the United States.

This week, a report for the California Legislature revealed that 250,000 people living in Central California, including four of the top five agricultural counties in the U.S., are currently at risk for nitrate contamination in their drinking water. Many of them are among the poorest Californians.

Nitrate, in this instance, is a byproduct of nitrogen fertilizer. In drinking water, high concentrations of it can interfere with the oxygen-carrying capacity of infants younger than six months, and, if left untreated, may lead to death from "blue baby" syndrome. Some studies suggest that long-term consumption of nitrate in drinking water may increase the risk of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Europe began tackling the problem in 1991 by designating "vulnerable zones" where the groundwater and streams were polluted with nitrate. Those zones now encompass 40 percent of the landmass in the continent. Today, 27 countries test for nitrate at 31,000 monitoring stations on or near farmland; and, with some overlap, at 27,000 monitoring stations in lakes, streams, and the ocean. Since 1991, reports show, nitrate use has dropped off sharply in Europe.


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Whole Foods Refuses to Support GMO-Mandatory Labeling Efforts in California

Recently, our intrepid real food activists and California Label GMO pioneers Pamm Larry and Stacey Hall reached out to Whole Foods Market asking them to allow educational events at their stores and for volunteers to be able to collect signatures from Californians who want mandatory labeling of GMOs--something that over 70% of people polled supported.  Below is their response.  We find it hard to believe that Whole Foods, ostensibly committed to healthy food and real choices, is against truth-in-labeling.  Please visit their Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/wholefoods or call your local Whole Foods and tell the manager that you would like them to allow signature gathering at their stores.  We have a real chance at victory in this campaign.  Let Whole Foods know they should be with us, not against us.

Hi Marci,
Thanks for getting back to us.  We are disappointed that Whole Foods is not interested in some of our suggestions.   And just to be clear, because it was not specifically addressed, we need to know whether Whole Foods will allow us to gather signatures in front of your stores in the Fall of 2011 for the California Genetically Engineered Food Labeling Act of 2012?  Signature gathering is expected to start in October so we need to know your answer by Friday, September 23rd at 5pm.  If we do not receive a response, we will assume that Whole Foods will not support signature gathering in front of your stores.  While we appreciate your strategy, polls show that consumers want mandatory labeling of genetically modified ingredients.  We hope that you will choose to support what your customers have repeatedly requested which is mandatory labeling.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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Upcoming Northern California Millions Against Monsanto Events

As part of OCA's Millions Against MonsantoTruth-in-Labeling Campaign we are encouraging activists in our network to plantheir own campaign events with others in their area. This email is to informyou that there is an upcoming event near you, organized by grassroots organizerswho care about the GE-labeling issue as much as you do.

Food Activist Pamm Larry, who is spearheading the effort to get GMO Labeling onthe California Ballot in 2012 (labelGMOs.org), is speaking at a series ofinformational events in your area. The goal is to pass a voterinitiative on the November 2012 ballot that would require all foods containingGMOs to be labeled.

These meetings are for activists to come together to learn about theinitiative, how we suggest being activists in your community and organizinginto a new cohesive group. We will be asking for folks to think aboutcommittees they want to be on and assign a point person.

 

Please come ready to "roll up your sleeves" and get to work onwhat we're
sure will be a historic ballot measure.

 

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California Prescription Pot Industry Looks to Self-Regulate for Orgainc Production

By Donna Jones
WATSONVILLE -- Want to buy organic carrots? No problem. Organic strawberries? Widely available. Organic honey? Try your local grocery store. But organic medicinal marijuana? Doesn't exist - at least not in any official sense.

Organic crops and products are certified by private agencies through the United States Department of Agriculture - a program developed after decades of advocacy by organic farmers and their allies. Pot - medicinal or otherwise - need not apply.

"What the USDA doesn't recognize as a legal crop we can't certify because we're certifying to their standards," said Jane Wade, development specialist at Santa Cruz-based California Certified Organic Farmers, the largest organic certification agency in the country. "That leaves medical marijuana out in the cold." It also leaves consumers interested in making sure they're not ingesting pesticides or other toxins along with their chosen pain reliever in a quandary.

Wade, who gets calls about organic marijuana certification "a few times a month," said people are frustrated by her response.

"They ask 'why can't you fix this,'" she said.

Wade said California Certified Organic Farmers worked for nearly three decades to get the USDA program in place. She suggested the medical marijuana community can take action as well.

"The path is already trodden," Wade said. "As long as they don't call it organic, there's no reason they can't adopt the rules already in place." 

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Oil and Water Don't Mix with California Agriculture

From the "Petroleum Highway" -- a rutted, dusty stretch of California State Route 33 -- you can see the jostling armies of two giant industries. To the east, relentless rows of almonds and pistachios march to the horizon. To the west, an armada of oil wells sweeps to the foothills of the Temblor Range.

Fred Starrh, who farms along this industrial front, has seen firsthand what can happen when agriculture collides with oil. On an overcast February day, he drives his mother-of-pearl Lincoln Town Car down a dirt road through his orchards. Starrh Farms has 6,000 acres of pistachios, cotton, almonds and alfalfa. Starrh proudly points out almond trees planted 155 to the acre with the aid of lasers and GPS. At the edge of his land, he pulls up beside 20-foot-high earthen berms, the ramparts of large "percolation" ponds that belong to a neighbor, Aera Energy.

From the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, Aera dumped more than 2.4 billion barrels (or just over 100 billion gallons) of wastewater -- known in the industry as "produced water" -- from its North Belridge oilfield into those unlined ponds, Starrh says. The impact became apparent beginning in 1999, when Starrh dug several wells to augment the irrigation water he gets from the California Aqueduct. He mixed the groundwater with aqueduct water, applied it to a cotton field beside the berms -- and the plants wilted. Eventually, the well water killed almond trees, Starrh says; he points out a few that look like gray skeletons.


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California Governor Defends a Farm-Labor Regime that Dates Back to the Days of Lynchings

By Tom Philpott
Grist, August 4, 2010
Straight to the Source

In the United States, we have two sets of rules for workers: one that applies to farm and domestic laborers, and another that applies to everyone else. Everyone else gets a 40-hour week, mandatory days off, and other protections. Farm and domestic workers don't.

Why the labor-force apartheid? I don't use that loaded word idly. The New York Times editorial page explains:

That inequality is a perverse holdover from the Jim Crow era. Segregationist Southern Democrats in Congress could not abide giving African-Americans, who then made up most of the farm and domestic labor force, an equal footing in the workplace with whites. President Roosevelt's compromise simply wrote workers in those industries out of the New Deal.

In our time, another despised group -- immigrants from Mexico and points south -- do most of our farm and domestic labor. As the eminent food-politics writer Barry Estabrook puts it, "Jim Crow is alive and well," congealed into labor laws that exclude these workers from basic New Deal protections.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would gave his state's vast army of farm workers a degree of equal footing with everyone else. The San Francisco Chronicle describes the governor's rationale:

In vetoing the measure, Schwarzenegger cited the fragile economy and said that extending overtime protections could put farms out of business, or result in lower paychecks for agricultural workers because farmers would hire more people and cut hours to avoid paying overtime.

The bit about "hiring more people" to avoid overtime is ludicrous. California's plantation-scale farms have faced labor shortages for years. Hysteria and militarism at the border, along with the bad U.S. economy, have led to fewer people sneaking over the border to pick our vegetables and clean our houses. There simply aren't more immigrants to hire -- and even in a rotten economy, U.S. citizens aren't exactly lining up to spend backbreaking days stooping in the sun for $10 per hour (the average wage of California farm workers).  

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