Community Supported Agriculture
By JACK HERTEL
Foothill Organic Growers, Newcastle, CA.

A foothill grower working hard to satisfy the Sacramento Valley and foothill area’s increasing appetite for organic produce, Foothill Organic Growers started delivering fresh local organic produce to 25 families in December 1995. In January 2000 we will be delivering to over 570 families, from Nevada City to Sacramento, Placerville, Stockton, and Merced.

The pre-pay method, called Community Supported Agriculture, gives small-scale growers a more steady income than the usual selling at a farmers’ market.

The consumer benefits by getting fresher, vine-ripened food free of harmful chemicals. I have been an organic farmer for 18 years and was president of the Auburn Growers Market for three years.

While organic produce initially costs more than store-bought fruits and vegetables, ours is fresher and will keep longer. Our weekly supply of recipes gives the family cook creative ways to prepare vegetables. Recent studies have shown that organic produce contains 2 to 3 times more nutrition than non-organic produce. The average American consumes one pound of food additives per year, including MSG, sugar substitutes, dyes, preservatives, nitrites, emulsifiers, fillers, waxes, tenderizers, antifreezes, hormones and antibiotics. Many of the risks associated with consuming so many additives are unknown. All of these preservatives and additives have made their way into the kitchens of America’s families because of the demand for easy, quick, conveniently packaged foods.

It is sad, but true, that children are at a greater risk than adults from the toxic effect of pesticides. According to Dr. Catherine Picoulin, a contributor to the Colfax Area Express, "Every year, 60 tons of hazardous chemicals are dumped in the United States....We may be exposed to over 2400 carcinogenic compounds, making our bodies chemical laboratories for all the drugs, pesticides and food additives that we daily ingest."

Agribusiness pumps nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium into our soils in such volume that much of the microbial life is snuffed out. It is this microbial life that helps build healthy soil. The solution is simple: COMPOST!

According to Organic Gardening magazine, "Composting is perhaps the simplest example we have of man working in harmony with nature, to keep his habitat in order and assure his own survival. The principle involved is really nothing more than the first law of good housekeeping, or good earthkeeping: when you’re done with something, put it back where it belongs."

Get involved in something big: Earth Day 2000
By LYNN M. HANSEN
MJC Biology instructor

Pirates Log, Modesto Junior College—Thirty years ago tetraethyl lead was in our gasoline poisoning the earth. Lake Erie had been "killed" by sewage and toxins; DDT had almost brought the Bald Eagle to extinction in the lower 48 states, and we were defoliating and destroying Vietnam. Students, teachers, communities and environmental organizations responded with a grass-roots celebration of the earth known as Earth Day.

The idea for this event, conceived by Senator George Gaylord Nelson and peace/environment activist John McConnell, was to celebrate the gifts of the earth, increase individual awareness and responsibility for environmental degradation, promote environmental activism to manage earth’s resources in a sustainable way, and continue the appeal for world peace. In 1969-70 we were in the midst of the Vietnam War, so it seemed appropriate that one symbol for the event was the American Flag with a superimposed peace symbol.

Another icon emerged in 1969 when the Apollo 11 Space Mission provided breathtaking photos of earth from space giving us a global perspective of our fragile planet. A photo of the blue planet earth has become the lasting symbol for Earth Day, moving us away from national to international emphasis as interconnected citizens of earth.

The first Earth Day was March 21, 1970 as proposed by John McConnell and formally declared by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The rationale for this date was simple: it was the first day of spring, or Vernal Equinox. On this date, the days and nights are equal around the world and in the words of McConnell, "hearts and minds can join together with thoughts of harmony and Earth’s rejuvenation."

That same year a nation-wide environmental teach-in on university and college campuses was scheduled for April 22, a date when the bounty of spring is at its height. Church bells rang in the dawn on April 22, 1970, and approximately 20 million people participated in teach-ins, eco-fairs, trash-ins, community parades, proclamations and environmental action. Activities on the MJC campus were sponsored by the Students for a Better Environment Club and centered on a teach-in which informed the citizens of Modesto on local ecological issues and treasures within our community.

Results of the first Earth Day grass-roots efforts included national environmental legislation such as the Clean Air Act and creation of the Environmental Protection Act. Locally, Ecology Action initiated a curbside recycling effort in Modesto. Earth Day 1970 was truly a national environmental awakening and April 22 continues to be the date for annual Earth Day celebrations.

On Saturday, April 22, 2000, Earth Day will be observed for the first time in this century. MJC has incorporated the Earth Day theme into one of the Learning Communities coordinated by biology instructor Lynn M. Hansen (advisor for the 1970 Students for a Better Environment). Events for this year will include Earth Fairs on both campuses with varieties of events including displays, music, lectures, panel discussions, video presentations, readers theater, art exhibits, poetry reading, bike-in, picnic, habitat restoration and much more.

Let us begin the year 2000 by becoming earth trustees, engaging all people, and taking seriously the challenge offered by John McConnell: "Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics, and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure."

Get Involved!

ACTION: Participate in Earth Day activities wherever you are. There will be events for the city of Modesto and Turlock. Watch for announcements in April Connections.}

Prescription for Trouble: Europe Just Says No
excerpted from Nucleus, the journal of the Union of Concerned Scientists

Europe recently took bold measures to put public health ahead of commercial interests. In 1998, the European Union (EU)banned antibiotics important in human medicine from use as growth promoters in livestock production. The United States, facing strong industry opposition, lags far behind.

Public health officials know well the cause of resistance to antibiotics. It’s overuse—not only in human medicine, the primary locus of the problem, but also in agriculture. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control consider the agricultural use of antibiotics to be the major cause of antibiotic resistance in food-borne illness.

It may come as a surprise, but something like 80 percent of agricultural antibiotics are used not to treat sick animals, but merely to promote efficient growth of chickens, cows, and pigs. If society is to reduce its use of antibiotics to minimize the evolution of resistant organisms, growth promotion in agriculture is a good place to start. Its benefits are economic, not health-related—and minor in any case. Antibiotic use is entrenched in modern livestock production; it is not essential for reasonably priced, high-quality meat.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has judged the EU’s actions to be based on sound science, but the pharmaceutical and meat companies are fighting it.

The EU also parts company with the US on the use of genetically modified food. That’s part of what the demonstrations in Seattle at the World Trade talks were all about.

Why do Europe and the United States see the technology of biogenetics so differently? (Recent news about "terminator" seeds that have been genetically modified have shown that we don’t know very much about the long term effect of food produced by those crops.) Recent food safety incidents here involving tainted Coca-cola and dioxin-contaminated meat have certainly played a part in creating European antipathy toward this technology. In addition, Europe’s consumers, blessed with abundant, diverse food, find it easy to forego the foods we produce here. When Sweden and Finland came into the EU, both countries already had strict restrictions on the use of antibiotics for animals, and that heightened the issue for the entire EU. The benefits to consumers’ public health of life-saving antibiotics are well worth the effort.

ACTION: Urge the Food and Drug Administration to follow the EU’s lead and ban animal uses of growth-promoting antibiotics used in human medicine. Write to Jane Henney, M.D., commissioner, Food and Drug Adm., 5600 Fishers Lane, Room 1471, Rockville, MD., 20857.

Suspected hazards of gene-tampered crops

The most recent issue of Agrarian Advocate, the newsletter of California Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), sheds further light on controversy about biogenetic changes in crops. Articles giving the actual experiences of farmers in using genetically modified seed are quoted in the Winter 2000 issue. In speaking of the use of Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a tool which organic gardeners have used for pest control for years, the paper says that "widespread planting of corps with the Bt toxin spliced into their DNA may soon render Bt ineffective." Bt is a naturally occurring soil bacterium which works as a natural pesticide on some pests and has been used for many years. However, when introduced into the genome of the plant, it does not degrade, as it does in nature, but remains in the environment as long as the plant does. Now we are finding that the pollen of the plants is lethal to such insects as the monarch butterfly.

Some experts have also speculated that some genetically altered crops, such as soy (widely eaten in all kinds of food) could be harmful to children. But, as with so many of the transgenic, or genetically engineered, plants, no one knows because no one is studying the long or short term effects.

Many farmers in California are not aware of the widespread use of genetically engineered plant material. It’s not just soy and corn, folks. The list also includes canola, carrots, cotton, flax , papayas, peppers, potatoes, radicchio, rice, soybeans, squash, sugar beets, tomatoes. No labeling exists, and labeling would be almost impossible to implement, say the experts.

Ready to go organic?

Wild on Wetlands Weekend, March 11 & 12

Valley Habitat— California’s largest contiguous block of wetlands—the 160,000 acre Grassland Ecological Area will be the focus of guided tours, workshops, wildlife viewing, demonstrations, and a variety of family activities throughout the Wild on Wetlands weekend, March 11 and 12.

This celebration honors the vast marshes of Merced County and their more than 550 species of plants and animals, including 47 presently listed as rare or endangered. Take part in birdwatching, crafts, cooking, and activities for children as well as family musical entertainment. Beginning early Saturday, events continue till 4 pm Sunday.

Headquarters for the festival is Merced College’s Los Banos campus, on Mercey Springs Road, just south of Highway 152. For admission costs and registration call (800) 336-6354 or check www.losbanos.com/wow.htm.