The effort to improve food safety by clearing wild vegetation surrounding crops is not helping and, in some cases, may even backfire, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. The findings, reported Monday, Aug. 10, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, call into question the effectiveness of removing non-crop vegetation as a way to reduce field contamination of fresh produce by disease-causing pathogens. This practice led to extensive loss of habitat in a region that is globally important for food production and natural resources.
- Leaving strips of vegetation between the grazed areas and fresh produce areas.
- Fencing off upstream waterways from cattle to prevent waste from going downstream.
- Planting crops that are usually cooked before being eaten, such as corn, artichokes and wheat, between fresh produce fields and grazeable lands.
After the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach, California’s agricultural industry implemented a voluntary certification program called the Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement. At the federal level, in 2011 President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act, considered one of the most sweeping reforms in farming practices in decades. Both efforts shift the focus to preventing rather than responding to outbreaks. Notably, neither the federal law nor the state program calls for the removal of wildlife habitat surrounding crops, but private buyers, keen on retaining consumer confidence in their products, may still require growers to take steps that go beyond government regulations. “The real worry for me is that federal law will be interpreted as the floor rather than the ceiling of what farmers should do,” said Karp. “There is this misguided idea that agricultural fields should be a sanitized, sterilized environment, like a hospital, but nature doesn’t work that way.” Other co-authors of the study are Sasha Gennet, senior scientist at The Nature Conservancy; Christopher Kilonzo, Melissa Partyka and Edward Atwill at UC-Davis, and Nicolas Chaumont at Stanford University. The UC Berkeley Center for Diversified Farming Systems, Berkeley Food Institute, The Nature Conservancy NatureNet Fellowship, and The Nature Conservancy of California helped support this research.
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