I am putting your health at risk...

We are very sorry! After reading this article "Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safety" I have seen the error of my ways. We are, I suppose, lucky that members can come to the farm at all to pick up, racked as they must be illness caused by our violations of food safety standards required by many super markets for their greens growers. Fine, I suppose, until those large growers push to make these rules apply to everyone!

Should these rules apply to me? If so, it was nice being your farmer because as of today we are out of business.

















For example, there is a requirement for 450 foot dirt buffer zones around fields. These no-man lands are to have no vegetation, to prevent animals from straying into the fields and contaminating my crops. The aerial photo shows 12 acres of our fields. The area in the center that does not have a colored overlay is the "safe" area to grow...

Wait a minute???

I am also very sorry to say to those of you whose children sweetly ask if they may feed a carrot to the chickens or who bug you all week about when they get to come back to the farm to visit the chickens, children, under 5 are no longer allowed on the farm. At all. You know they are a "diaper risk." Even if they never touch a growing veggie, never step foot in the garden, even if they never see the veggies in the field they are a safety risk (as are their parents if they are not wearing an official farm ID badge.) It is truly amazing that those of us who enjoy cooking with young children have survived meals where they MIX THE DOUGH, WITH THEIR HANDS!!!) Personally, I am wondering how my own children will feel, not being able to live on the farm with us until they are 5, but all in the name of food safety...

Then there are the deer and rabbits. Any place we see evidence of animals be it a footprint or a toad, we are to destroy all crops in a 30' wide swath through the garden. I am telling you now, we will have no garden. Personally, I see an occasional toad and frog as a sign that we have a healthy garden, but I guess it is not so healthy for you! I suppose the park will be OK with us poisoning all our animal friends! After all, we must be safe.

So (on the unlikely case) that any of our members are still alive to read this, please accept my apologies! The facts are according to Seattle trial lawyer Bill Marler, who represented many of the plaintiffs in the 2006 E. coli outbreak in "In 16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, I can tell you I've never had a case where it's been linked to a farmers' market, could it happen? Absolutely. But the big problem has been the mass-produced product. What you're seeing is this rub between trying to make it as clean as possible so they don't poison anybody, but still not wanting to come to the reality that it may be the industrialized process that's making it all so risky."

I stand by the statement that their may come a day when doing what we do - growing food on a small scale using natural and sustainable methods - will be illegal...