Beefy Security

US - Last week Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center in Oregon, told farmers gathered at Asilomar that the key to preventing another deadly E. coli outbreak is not more self-imposed regulation, but collaboration with livestock owners.
calendar icon 2 February 2007
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“I don’t believe farmers and food processors in California can solve this alone,” Benbrook told the audience at the 27th annual Eco-Farm Conference. “Part of the solution is going to entail changing how cattle are managed when they exist in and around important fruit and vegetable growing areas.”

It’s an idea that has taken hold in the Salinas Valley in the months since last fall’s outbreak, amid much confusion and with mixed popularity. Lou Calcagno, county supervisor and owner of Moonglow Dairy in Moss Landing, says in the last two or three months many Salinas Valley cattlemen have voluntarily removed animals from confined areas near productive ag land.

Calcagno sold 370 steers in mid-November, choosing to close down his feedlot rather than jeopardize his relationship with a neighboring farmer who grows artichokes and strawberries on an adjacent parcel. “We mutually agreed the cattle should go,” Calcagno says.

Calcagno says farmers are under enormous pressure and he’ll help them any way he can. But not everyone shares his view.

“I’m getting very disappointed and angry with this situation and the way it’s being handled,” says Soledad rancher Clem Albertoni, who recently sold 15 roping steers and horses that had been corralled near the fields after hearing that regulations were on the way barring confined cattle operations near crops.

Source: Monterey County Weekly

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