by Denise O'Brien
Do you want perfectly-shaped tomatoes, broccoli and green peppers? Do you want fruits and vegetables with no insect marks or imperfections? What price are you willing to pay for such perfect-looking food?
The industrialized business of growing food poses environmental and health dilemmas of rural regions that often go unnoticed by the urban and suburban population of the United States.
For example, heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and factories filled with hogs and chickens have polluted water and air, and left the soil sterile. Farm families can no longer drink water from their wells and play or relax in their yards because the wells are contaminated with chemicals such as atrazine and nitrates and the air is rank with the odor of waste lagoons. Chemicals and manure run off the land and seep through the soil to contaminate groundwater.
According to a recent study by the Pesticide Action Network North America, the use of cancer-causing pesticides in California has more than doubled in eight years, up 127 percent from 1991 to 1998. People most at risk from this pesticide use are farm workers who come into direct contact with the chemicals in the fields.
As recently as November 1999, mist from a sprinkler application of the soil fumigant metam sodium blew into Earlimart, Calif., forcing 150 people to evacuate their homes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says exposure to this pesticide can cause acute skin irritation and serious irritation of respiratory mucous membranes, eyes and lungs. EPA lists metam sodium as a probable human carcinogen. The state of California lists the chemical as causing both cancer and birth defects in laboratory animals.
As the amount of pesticides used in California has increased, the number of acres planted has remained approximately the same. The result is a dramatic increase in the intensity of pesticide use, up 60 percent from 14.4 pounds per acre to 23 pounds per acre. Crops with the highest intensity of pesticide use include strawberries, dates, sweet potatoes, pears and lemons.
Ammonia, which is injected into soil as a source of nitrogen for growing corn, is highly toxic and can cause blindness and death. Early this year, a small town in Iowa had to be evacuated because of a leak from an anhydrous ammonia tank.
The ammonia shows up as nitrates in the water. Throughout Iowa, especially in a wet year, the level of nitrates in rivers and streams gets dangerously high because of run off from fields. Water systems in small towns have had to be rebuilt because of high levels of nitrates, which rob red blood cells of oxygen and cause a problem with infants known as blue babies.
Below the surface
Driving along U.S. country roads, the farmsteads that dot the roadside look serene and peaceful. Behind the beautiful appearance are hundreds of thousands of tons of manure from hog and chicken confinement operations stored in lagoons that foul the air and pollute the water. This pollution forces farm families to stay indoors.
The EPA estimates 35,000 miles of U.S. rivers are polluted with livestock waste. Recently, millions of gallons of livestock waste merged with floodwaters in North Carolina creating an environmental catastrophe.
Ten years ago, North Carolina was doing little to protect the public from these polluters. As a result, hog operations overran the eastern portion of the state where they caused massive waste spills and fish kills, and contaminated drinking water.
"The Impact of Livestock Concentration in Iowa," a report of the Iowa Citizen Task Force and the Iowa Farmers Union Education Foundation revealed the following about factory farming in Iowa:
Action ideas
While many rural residents accept health hazards as the cost of modern agriculture, many others are speaking out against industrialized agriculture and are working to change laws that permit this type of agriculture. They want clean air, water and soil.
United Methodist Women can help foster a cleaner rural environment by supporting farmers who grow food using sustainable agricultural practices. These practices include such things as organic agriculture and integrated pest management.
As consumers, United Methodist Women members can buy fresh fruits and vegetables from farmer's markets and at farm stands. They can join Community Supported Agriculture groups. These groups buy memberships to farms and in return are provided with fresh fruits and vegetables during the growing season and beyond.
In some areas of the country there is a movement afoot called Congregational Supported Agriculture where members of churches support local farmers in their food production. Congregations adopt a farmer who supplies church members with fresh food during the growing season. Church potlucks can feature locally-grown foods bought from nearby farms.
Urban and rural women can reach out to each other to create a just food system, which will in turn help clean up the environment. The future doesn't have to be a future dominated by industrialized agriculture and its accompanying spoiled air, water and soil.
Denise O'Brien is coordinator of Women, Food, and Agriculture Network in Atlantic, Iowa. She is a member of United Methodist Women.