The same piece was printed in the Wisconsin State Journal this week.
The headline was: "EPA leaflet only fuels myth that organic foods are safe
foods" Lots of inflamatory statements with no sources listed to back them
up.
Regardless of your position on organic production, his statement that use
of animal manure in farming systems is a primary cause of food
contamination problems should be of concern to all of us involved in
sustainable agriculture.
Kindest regards,
Laura
At 11:05 AM 8/7/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Our Lincoln, Neb. paper carried an article Aug. 3 by Dennis Avery (Knight
>Ridder Newspapers) with the headline "Government not coming clean about
>organic foods." The bold pull quote read "Organic and natural foods made up
>about only 1 percent of the U.S. food supply, but they were implicated in at
>least 8 percent of the confirmed 0157:H7 E. coli cases."
>
>Avery blasted EPA for distributing new pamphlets to supermarkets this week
>that "talk about undocumented 'dangers' from pesticide residues in our food"
>while not addressing the dangers from organic and "natural" foods that pose
>even greater risks. He states such things as Consumer Reports found that
>free-range chickens are more likely to be infected with dangerous bacteria.
>
>The entire article was very anti-organic (surprise, surprise!), and used
>scare tactics that in my mind are questionable. To say it was an unbalanced
>treatment of the topic would be an understatement. Now we in the sust ag
>community are well aware of Avery and his message, but the general public
>could be easily mislead by such an article. It was brought to my attention
>by one of our food science professors, who asked if I had any idea on what
>grounds Avery was basing his statements. Did any of you see such an item in
>your local papers?
>***********************
>Pam Murray, Coordinator
>Center for Grassland Studies and
>Center for Sustainable Agricultural Systems
>PO Box 830949
>University of Nebraska
>Lincoln, NE 68583-0949
>phone: 402-472-9383
>fax: 402-472-4104
>e-mail: csas001@unlvm.unl.edu
>
>
>To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
>To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
>"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
>
Laura Paine
Department of Agronomy
University of Wisconsin
1575 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: 608/262-6203
Fax: 608/265-3437
email: lkpaine@facstaff.wisc.edu
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".