

Sanitizing Agriculture - quoderat
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/07/13/MN0218DVJ8.DTL

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wooster
Rancher/farmer here, from the Salinas Valley surrounds.

There are some factual errors in the article, like this gem: "The deadly bug
first appeared in hamburger meat in the early 1980s"

E. coli has been around approximately forever, so I don't know what the hell
they were thinking when they wrote that. See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli>

However, they do make some valid points. One of them is the bit about wildlife
being killed off in pursuit of food safety. The Salinas Valley is essentially
a dead zone for birds at this point, as they're seen as a disease vector for
food. This is a far cry from the direction agriculture had been taking prior
to the spinach scare, which was towards organic and sustainable agriculture.

Secondly, they do mention the feral pig vector (just Google for "feral pig e
coli"). California has some fairly ridiculous ideas about feral pigs, among
them being the requirement that people purchase a pig tag to kill them ($19.70
each, plus $41.20 for the hunting license). This is absurd, given that they're
one of the most destructive invasive species in existence. If they really are
a vector for the spread of E. coli (which is easy to imagine... there are
millions of feral pigs in California, and especially around the Salinas
Valley), there should be a bounty on them, not a fee. There are depredation
permits available, but they're not in widespread enough use to make a dent
(and I know farmers who have killed hundreds of pigs in a year, on a single
plot, with a depredation permit and one rifle).

And, yes, I realize the two above paragraphs may sound contradictory. There's
a difference between trying to enable sustainable agriculture and letting
invasive species spread unchecked. As it stands, California is getting the
worst of both worlds.

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bmunro
I think the article meant that a deadly strain of E. coli first appeared in
the early 1980s.

E. coli in general does not cause death, It is present in the gut of most
mammals, including humans.

