Home-grown veg ruined by toxic fertiliser

[panzerfaust]

Source: The Guardian


... Gardeners have been warned not to eat home-grown vegetables contaminated by a powerful new herbicide that is destroying gardens and allotments across the UK ...

... The affected gardens and allotments have been contaminated by manure originating from farms where the hormone-based herbicide aminopyralid has been sprayed on fields.

Dow AgroSciences, which manufactures aminopyralid ...

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/29/food.agriculture

---

Organic gardeners are those affected.

The herbicide was introduced by accident in manure that had come from animals which had eaten grass that had been sprayed (a year before!) to control woody-weeds with Dow's herbicide aminopyralid which is specifically prohibited from being used on food crops.

As best I can tell, Dow's aminopyralid - "Milestone"(tm) - is also used in America, as it was given conditional approval by Bush's EPA in August of 2005.

Go out to the garden and see how your veggies look.

[midnight]

1. I find this suspicious?

The herbicide was introduced by accident

[rucky]

2. my first thought, as well.

that it was suspicious.

[panzerfaust]

5. Likely was unintentional

Dow, grasping and corrupt as they may be, is unlikely to have deliberately targeted the known to be fiercely bonkers allotment holders by plotting to kill their potatoes in this fashion.

It does seem as though what happened is that fields were sprayed (legal) last spring. That late in summer, early fall the fields were cut and the grass either baled as hay, or made into silage.

Aminopyralid ("Milestone"(tm), or, perhaps more fittingly "Tombstone") is claimed by Dow to quickly break down in the soil, so everyone apparently assumed that it would be gone in a few weeks - certainly by the time the grass was cut: NOT.

The Tombstone contaminated hay or silage was then fed to cattle and horses and it apparently passes unchanged through these herbivore's guts. The manure was collected into manure piles, which sit and compost. It turns out that aminopyralid breaks down very slowly when in compost. The composted manure was then sold either directly from farms and stables to local gardeners, or was sold to organic fertilizer companies which distributed it nation-wide.

Still, I am sure that Dow is not worried that this may harm the organic farms in the UK - or here, for that matter.

[HereSince1628]

3. Um, manure comes from animals...is there a warning on the meat and dairy products

from the animals that produced this manure?

On edit: I just find it odd that home garden products 4 steps down the chain may not be safe to eat when the meat and dairy products one step removed from original herbicide application are considered safe.

[galledgoblin]

7. CONSIDERED safe

key word there

someday we'll learn that abdominal pain, agitation, anxiety, constipation, decreased sex drive, diarrhea or loose stools, difficulty with ejaculation, dizziness, dry mouth, fatigue, gas, headache, decreased appetite, increased sweating, indigestion, insomnia, nausea, nervousness, rash, pain, sleepiness, sore throat, tingling or pins and needles, tremor, vision problems, vomiting, acne, allergic reaction, altered taste, back pain, blindness, breast development in males, breast pain or enlargement, breathing difficulties, bruise-like marks on the skin, cataracts, changeable emotions, chest pain, cold, clammy skin, conjunctivitis (pinkeye), coughing, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, double vision, dry eyes, eye pain, fainting, feeling faint upon arising from a sitting or lying position, feeling of illness, female and male sexual problems, fluid retention, blushing, frequent urination, hair loss, heart attack, hemorrhoids, hiccups, high blood pressure, high pressure within the eye (glaucoma), hearing problems, hot flushes, impotence, inability to stay seated, increased appetite, increased salivation, increased sex drive, inflamed nasal passages, inflammation of the penis, intolerance to light, irregular heartbeat, itching, joint pains, kidney failure, lack of coordination, lack of sensation, leg cramps, menstrual problems, low blood pressure, migraine, movement problems, muscle cramps or weakness, need to urinate during the night, nosebleed, pain upon urination, prolonged erection, purplish spots on the skin, racing heartbeat, rectal hemorrhage, respiratory infection/lung problems, ringing in the ears, rolling eyes, sensitivity to light, sinus inflammation, skin eruptions or inflammation, sleepwalking, sore on tongue, speech problems, stomach and intestinal inflammation, swelling of the face and throat, swollen wrist and ankles, thirst, throbbing heartbeat, twitching, vaginal inflammation, hemorrhage or discharge, yawning, cancer, asthma, ulcers, male pattern baldness, UTIs, short statures, obesity, ingrown hairs and nails, and love of professional wrestling are all caused by the chemical crap that leeches into our food.

or maybe Zoloft... wow, some of those side effects look like a basket of fun when combined...

[Gman]

12. You forgot rightwingism

very important.

[psychmommy]

17. we need to watch our very young and elderly.

they are usually the most vulnerable. i do believe that male breasts are from the food. guys that aren't really that heavy have breasts. our children are huge. my 11 year old daughter, average height for her age is dwarfed by some 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. something is wrong. how many kids are on meds for add/adhd. it is in the food. i have my tin foil hat out on the subject of our food, especially our meat and milk. :tinfoilhat:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

38. Proffessional wrestling dependency is a serious problem.

And you would do well not to make light of it.

[Champion Jack]

4. I guess you need to know your shit

or at least where it came from , what the animals ate etc...

[angstlessk]

6. In the same way they tried to make the collection of rain water illegal

they are attempting to make growing one's own food dangerous to one's health. :grr:

[yellowcanine]

8. Who is "they"? This kind of vague finger pointing doesn't help solve the problem.

Someone apparently miscalculated on herbicide residual action. The mistake was compounded when it wasn't discovered. Clearly more research and stricter regulation is needed but speculation about conspiracies does not lead us to a solution.

And there may be a good scientific reason for not collecting rain water in some instances - such as when it is contaminated with toxic chemicals - so that is kind of a red herring also.

[alfredo]

10. Bechtel bought up the water rights in Bolivia. When they raised the prices

too high, people started collecting rain water. When Bechtel found out, they made the government outlaw the collection of "Bechtel's" water. There was an uprising against them and Bechtel was booted out of Bolivia. I think they have been allowed back in. Most likely they got the water rights because of some World Bank arm twisting.

[angstlessk]

14. here are only a few links including some in America who make it illegal to collect rain water...

http://dak42.blogspot.com/2005/01/illegal-to-collect-rainwater-without.html

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/frugal/msg061846516039.html?3

http://livefrankly.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/water-its-not-for-everyone/

[yellowcanine]

24. Ok and what is the connection to this herbicide issue? I still think you can't make a connection

to some kind of global conspiracy.

[yardwork]

27. It's not exactly a conspiracy. Conspiracy implies secrecy.

This is blatant corporatism. It's right out in the open. The corporations are running rough-shod over everyone in their pursuit of constantly increasing profits.

[angstlessk]

32. you understand you do not have to make EVERYONE afraid to grow their own

veggies just enough to make a difference to your wallet...sorry corporations have proven to me more than once they care not a whit about human life and will not stop at murder to increase their bottom line profits...years ago when I studied Econ 101 it stated clearly that 'if there was a profit to be made private industry will produce it' with out a caveat..without an exception of harm or death just profit motive....

do no preach to me to keep my mouth shut in the face of what has happened to our food supply from Timbuktu to macon georgia, agribusiness is no kinder nor gentler than exxon/mobile, Halliburton, or Dow Chemical in Bophol who poisoned all those people and are trying to get out of recompense of the victims...

I do not feel sorry for, nor do I trust multi-national corporations...period.

Your high horse just might contain tainted horse shit!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

37. Nobody here is afraid to grow their own vegetables.

If anything, they're mad at Dow and the idiots who misused the herbicide.

[AlbertCat]

15. Amen!

Clearly more research and stricter regulation is needed but speculation about conspiracies does not lead us to a solution.


******************


This, and a most of our problems here in the US, stem from deregulation. The housing market, gas prices, War profiteers, killer tomatoes....all deregulation problems. Welcome to a GOP America! And world!

[robinlynne]

16. You obviously haven't been reading about the rain water fights in south america.

I suggest you do. it will blow your socks off.

[yellowcanine]

25. And the connection to this herbicide issue is ........ What?

[robinlynne]

30. huge corporations inserting themselves into every facet of our being, whether or not they

belong there, and no matter what the consequences.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

36. When has the UK ever tried to make collection of rainwater illegal?

Growing your own vegetables and keeping allotments is encouraged here. Furthermore, you could sooner separate an NRA member from his guns than an English person from their garden or their home-grown vegetables. Your post is nonsense.

[Summer93]

9. Control - obviously not controlled

I would also want to know what has happened to the animals who ate this "weed control" as it seems to be potent in fertilizer of the animal who ate it. When Dow tested this chemical they must know the extent to which their product has potency, not just when sprayed on fields but AFTER it has been eaten, digested and then used as fertilizer. Dow did this knowing the end results.

[formercia]

11. Interesting that the warning would come now

that more people are putting in gardens to provide food for their families during the impending economic collapse.

That's some deadly shit.

[lebkuchen]

13. The UK and US are two of a kind

glad I'm on the continent, though, for sure feels like the world is getting smaller in terms of safe places to live.

[Orangeone]

18. I was wondering

about contaminated soils in urban gardens. There is sometimes a lot lead and other things in the soil and I was wondering if can be taken up by the vegetables grown in it...?

[panzerfaust]

19. I *never* thought of that. There is some information -

I found the following article which confirms that urban soils are heavily contaminated with lead - which has a soil half-life of 700 years - but it does not address eating veggies from such soil.

Certainly any plant could have surface lead contamination from dust and dirt - which likely is removed by washing - but I do not know if the plants would take up lead from the soil and incorporate it into their tissues.

It is an interesting and important question!

The following is from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1257609

(Pb = LEAD)

"Pb content and Pb loading of urban soils. A critical aspect of Pb accumulated in soils is the relationship between Pb content and Pb loading. Studies in Minnesota and Louisiana examined the issue of Pb loading of the soil (Mielke 1993; Mielke et al. 1992). In large cities of Minnesota and Louisiana, the median soil Pb for various site types measured from 6.0 to 32.25 g/m2, and the top 0.025 mm contained 6,000–32,250 μg Pb/m2 (557–2,996 μg Pb/ft2) (Mielke 1993). When one compares this Pb loading rate with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s guideline of 40 μg Pb/ft2 for interior floors, it becomes evident that soil is an enormous reservoir of Pb dust. Because of the low mobility of Pb in soil, all of the Pb that accumulates on the surface layer of the soil is retained within the top 20 cm (Laidlaw 2001; Mielke et al. 1983). The half-life of Pb in surface soils has been estimated to be approximately 700 years, so without corrective action, Pb dust will persist for many generations (Semlali et al. 2004). The persistence of the Pb burden that has accumulated in soil has significant long-term public health implications (Lejano and Ericson 2005)."

[Trillo]

20. While it's off topic

Iron sewer pipes are typically joined with lead. Probably nearly every lot....

I'm guessing newer construction tends to use ABS (plastic) pipes instead.

[jmowreader]

34. Either PVC or ABS, but yes, new construction uses plastic pipe

There's also concrete pipe, but you wouldn't see it in residential construction because it's very large in diameter.

[panzerfaust]

21. Yep: "An Overview of the Phytoremediation of Lead and Mercury"

http://venus.semyung.ac.kr/~jmc65/home/data/pdf/an%20Overview%20of%20the%20phytoremediation%20Pb%20Hg.pdf

"Phytoremediation" is apparently the use of plants to remove heavy metals from the soil by uptake into the plant tissues.

The article notes that "The consumption of contaminated plants by wildlife is also of concern" and that "Harvested plant biomass ... may be classified as ... hazardous waste ..."

Not too encouraging for city gardens.

The only bright spot I see, is that "... lead and mercury, -are- two of the most difficult heavy metals to remove by ... phytoremediation." since most plants do not take up much lead.

On the down-side, some plants, such as the grass agrostis tenuis are hyperaccumulators of lead (and other heavy metals: such as depleted Uranium). Common garden food plants were not mentioned in the article.

Great.

Is anyone here a plant biologist, or otherwise knowledgeable about heavy metal uptake by plant tissue?

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. maybe the garden forum folks would know?

btw...on one of the links above, I found this interesting quote:

(T)he Chinese symbol for political order is based on that for water.
“The meaning always has been clear,” the writer observes.
“Those who control water control people.”

and then there is this:

In April of this year,
"The State of Florida has given a Nestle bottling plant the right
to pump as much water as it can get out of Madison Blue Springs State Park,
which is presently in drought conditions.
The right lasts until 2018, and cost Nestle $230 in permit fees.
Florida is presently in bitter dispute with its neighboring states
over a region-wide water-shortage."

source:http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/10/florida-sells-unlimi.html

[Karenina]

29. ...

:eyes:

[Grinchie]

23. Aminopyralid gets rid of Thistles, Dock and other woody plants.

What a great blessing! I can douse the entire field with this stuff and I don't have to worry about letting the three or so Dock plants go to seed! I no longer have to walk through the field with a hoe and use about 1 calorie's worth of energy do remove it and let it feed the other plants.

Now I can spray once and be assured that no one will ever walk through the field again!

Ever think how many BTU's it takes to create this toxic crap in the first place?

It's OK, they have to keep the Chemical Warfare Plants running, so why not make some harmless product like Aminopyralid?

[yardwork]

26. Wow. This is incredibly toxic stuff. That's a third or fourth degree connection.

Let me get this straight. The herbicide was sprayed on fields to kill woody weeds. Over a year later, cows ate grass grown in the same field. The cows' manure was contaminated. Who ate the cows' meat?? Who drank the cows' milk?? What is being done about that.

Sometime later, the composted manure from the cows that ate the grass grown in the field that had been sprayed more than a year earlier was put on organic gardens and killed the vegetables. It used to be that composting manure took care of the toxins. Not any more.

These systemic poisons are truly wrecking our world.

[hedgehog]

28. Anybody ask the honey bees what they think of this stuff? nt

[kestrel91316]

31. Advice to gardeners: Make your OWN compost. Don't buy it.

Hell, it makes composting one's own manure sound more and more tempting.........

Nothing would make the Powers That Be happier these days than to make it impossible for people to grow any of their own food, and be reduced to purchasing every last morsel. I don't happen to think this was accidental. I think it was allowed to happen with profit as motive.

Gotta nip that burgeoning "Victory Garden for the 21st Century" thing in the bud!

[CookCountyResident]

33. The only 'natural fertilizer' is

the compost you make in your own yard.

[humus]

35. Democratic Diggin-in

Fearnside: Your emphasis is on local economies, not on organic farming. Why?

Berry: “Organic” has become a label, as it was destined to be. It’s a completely worthless word now. It has been perverted to suit the needs of industrial agriculture.

Fearnside: Many people buy organic because it’s healthy.

Berry: That’s true, but in a local food economy, consumers could exert a certain pressure on producers, and rather than push for convenience or even cheapness, informed consumers would apply pressure on behalf of health, sustainability, and security. So the natural tendency in a local food economy would be toward healthfulness.

Fearnside: Do you think that our unhealthy food practices have to do with our lack of connection to the sacred?

Berry: I would say so, because when you are in the presence of something you consider sacred, the natural response is to be humble and respectful and careful. This is dependent on the scale of the endeavor not being too large, and on a proper ratio between the amount of land needing care and the number of caretakers. Ecologist Wes Jackson calls that the “eyes-to-acres ratio,” and it varies according to the type of farm. A ranch in New Mexico with a good grazing program can get by with fewer people than a highly diversified Kentucky farm.

Fearnside: Should the responsibility for changing the food system lie more with the consumer, more with the producer, or equally with both?

Berry: When the producers — the farmers — are going broke, it’s wrong to expect them to reform the system. In fact, there are too few actual farmers left to reform anything. So, as a practical matter, reform is going to have to come from consumers. Industrial agriculture is an urban invention, and if agriculture is going to be reinvented, it’s going to have to be reinvented by urban people.

Fearnside: Those concerned about the land often try to quantify its worth — for example, calculating the monetary worth of a forest to demonstrate why it should remain uncut. Wouldn’t it be better to help people understand the unquantifiable value of a healthy environment?

Berry: Quantification is useful up to a point. You can’t quantify the true value of a forest that is going to be destroyed by mountaintop-removal mining, but to the extent that it can be quantified, I think it ought to be. Any good forester should be able to tell you what the value of that timber would be over, say, two hundred years of sustainable production, and we can compare that to the current dollar value of the coal under the mountain and make a financial argument for keeping the forest. That sort of comparison ought to be done, but it isn’t.

It’s possible to figure out what a city’s annual consumption of products from the land economy is: How much food do the people in the city eat? How much do they require in the way of forest products? How much do they require in the way of mined minerals or fuels? Those numbers can be produced, but we don’t have them, as far as I can tell. Economists and businessmen who are supposed to be hardheaded realists and materialists, concerned about scientific fact, never have these numbers. There’s such a thing as professional bullshit, and this is it.

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/391/digging_in