A recent study showed climate change was resulting in
stronger hurricanes, and some years, Florida, with all of its
orange groves, has been devastated by those storms. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Florida’s orange producers have
escaped any devastating hurricanes so far
this season. But in recent years, the big
storms have been worse. They’ve contributed
to a 40% decline in orange crops
in the last five years. Julie Grant reports
that has some companies looking elsewhere
for oranges:
Transcript
Florida’s orange producers have
escaped any devastating hurricanes so far
this season. But in recent years, the big
storms have been worse. They’ve contributed
to a 40% decline in orange crops
in the last five years. Julie Grant reports
that has some companies looking elsewhere
for oranges:
Matthias Guentert is president of Symrise. The company
makes flavorings for beverages and processed foods.
When Symrise was deciding where to open its new citrus
headquarters – Guentert says they considered Florida – but
then chose to open in Brazil instead. One reason: Florida’s
increasingly unpredictable weather.
“Weather has been affecting people in Florida and in the
south of the US in the last years. And when it comes to
making a decision like this, it does play into it.”
A recent study showed climate change was resulting in
stronger hurricanes, and some years, Florida, with all of its
orange groves, has been devastated by those storms.
If you find a wooden apple like this one in a Vermont orchard, you can turn it in for a free iPod (Photo courtesy of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing)
An apple tree at the Shelburne Orchards in Vermont (Photo by Megan J. Humphrey)
Fall is in full swing, and in the
northern states, what better way to appreciate
the time of year than to go apple picking?
It’s the fall thing to do, right? Well, not
for everyone. Lulu Miller reports:
Transcript
Fall is in full swing, and in the
northern states, what better way to appreciate
the time of year than to go apple picking?
It’s the fall thing to do, right? Well, not
for everyone. Lulu Miller reports:
“Ooh that’s perfect! Perfect fall day. Little Chill in the air.”
That’s orchard owner Nick Cowles and we’re here with him at his orchard.
“Beautiful apple!”
Shelburne Orchards. Near Burlington Vermont.
“Looks out over Lake Champlain.”
And to hear him to tell it, an afternoon spent apple picking is pretty much as
good as it gets.
“Yeah. There’s something about gathering food with your family that’s primal
almost. I see people show up in their cars. The dad, the face is a little pinched. He
had to get the kids in the car. They didn’t really wanna come. His whole life is
stress. And then by the time, the difference in the face when he’s leavin’, it’s just
a whole different face.”
Everyone’s dream weekend, right?
Well. Not exactly. There is one group of people who just aren’t all that thrilled
about fall leaves and apple picking.
“Well yeah. The demographics of Vermont are a little scary right now. We have
the least number of folks in there 20s in the country.”
That’s Bruce Hyde, Commissioner of Tourism for the state of Vermont. He says
the 20-somethings are missing.
“I can understand after going to one of the great colleges we have in a rural state,
that a lot of folks wanna go and experience the big cities and sow their oats.”
And so, as the guy in charge of tourism, Bruce has a mission.
“We’re really trying to attract more young people to the state of Vermont.”
And here’s what he’s up against.
Lulu Miller: “Just wondering if you guys have any plans to go apple picking this
season?”
Student: “Not really. I’m not really into apples.”
Miller: “No?”
Student: “My age? It’s kind of about the debauchery. Sleeping in on Saturdays.
Not going apple picking with the folks. You know?”
I’m talking to college students in a park near New York University.
Student: “It’s not something that I would hear my friends being like, ‘can’t hang
out on Saturday! Going apple picking!’ I just can’t imagine that coming out of
their mouths.”
So what’s a commissioner of tourism to do?
“We were trying to figure out, what’s a way to get more young people into the
orchards? So we came up with an idea. A cute little idea.”
If apples just weren’t enticing enough to lure people to Vermont, Comissioner
Hyde thought, maybe there’s something else they’d prefer to find in the trees.
Like…
“An iPod!”
That’s right in the apple trees of Vermont.
“Macintosh. Courtlans. Red delicious.”
You can find iPods.
“Nano’s. A couple of touch’s. And the just the classic iPod.”
Now they’re not actually dangling from the trees.
“What we did is we made up wooden apples. They have the state seal on them.”
And if you find that, you can turn it and get an ipod.
“Yeah. And it really has brought a lot of people into the orchards. We haven’t
done any kinda survey. But the response I’ve heard from orchards is they’ve
never seen so few apples left on the trees.”
Orchard owner Nick Cowles agrees.
“Lotta people know about it, have heard about it. ‘Come on mom, lets go look
for the iPod!’ It’s a great program. It does what it set out to do. It really helps the
orchards. They’ve been very smart to do this.”
So what do the college students think?
Student: (laughs) “They’res gonna be iPods with apples!? No way!”
Miller: “Would that make you go? Would it up the ante at all?”
Student: “It absolutely does. I would definitely go apple picking if there was a
chance I could stumble across an iPod.”
But not all of them feel that way, in fact many of them pointed out that luring
people with iPods sounds so wrong. Kinda grinds against the notion of getting
people out into nature.
“Does that feel wrong? No.”
Orchard owner Nick Cowles.
“In my estimation, anything that brings families together, outside, doing
something like that – it doesn’t get any better than that. They’re out in the
orchard, runnin’ around, picking apples – that’s healthy. They’re doin’ it as a
family.”
Bob Gavlak and his partners organize freshly-harvested produce in
their cooling truck. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Deli owner Donna Chriszt is pleased with the quality of the beans
and other produce. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:
Last summer Matt Szugye entered a college business school
competition. His team needed to make a plan for a new
business. They started throwing around ideas.
“It just happened, that the night before I was at a restaurant
talking with an owner, and they were telling me about the
trials and tribulations of starting their restaurant with the idea
that they would serve seasonal, local produce.”
But the restaurant owner couldn’t get food like onions,
zucchini or tomatoes directly from local farms. Szugye’s
team studied the idea. Lots of people in the food business
were saying the same things. Things like this:
“So I’m getting things shipped in from other states.”
That’s Donna Chriszt. She’s the owner and chef at Dish Deli
and Catering. It’s a small, gourmet deli in a downtown
Cleveland neighborhood.
“And the amount of fossil fuels that are coming out of that,
we hated. So, it’s not what I wanted to do for my
community.”
So now that the college team knew there was demand for a
product, they contacted farmers. Eureka. There was also a
supply. Lots of farmers wanted new ways to sell their fruits
and vegetables locally.
The team put together a plan for a distribution business – to
pickup produce from farms and deliver it to nearby
restaurants.
They decided they could use the internet.
It would work a little like an online dating service. Each
farmer could list what’s available and set the price. The
restaurant owners could browse through the list and place
their orders. The college students’ business plan would be
the match-maker.
The team won their business school contest.
After graduation this Spring, they launched an actual
business based on their model.
They call it Fresh Fork.
Donna Chriszt was thrilled.
“I was like hallelujah. Thank God someone will be able to
help a small place like me by doing all the foot work.”
(sound of a factory)
After picking up produce from farmers, Fresh Fork Team
member Bob Gavlak is finally getting back to the distribution
center. It’s 10 p.m. It could have gone a lot sooner, but he
got caught up talking with the farmers about what they’re
growing and how their kids are doing, you know, forging
relationships.
(sound of a cooling truck)
The team now has to move racks of produce in a cooling
truck. Then they organize it all.
“This is where we’re going tomorrow, is Dish Deli and
Catering. And you can see Knoble Farms. They have some
corn.”
When Gavlak and his partners started planning this
business, they didn’t quite get why there was such a fuss
about local food.
They were still college students fueled by Ramen and fast
food.
So they spent some time on the food prep line at an upscale
local restaurant – cutting onions, stirring soup – for hours.
Not pouring soup out of a bag like a lot of places. Gavlak
says he started to understand.
“I would go to the store and I’d have strawberries, and I’d be
like, ‘oh, these are so good’. But then, when we had
strawberries here in the spring and early summer, it’s like I’d
never had a strawberry before. It’s just seeing the difference
that happens between a product that’s fresh and homegrown
and the product that isn’t.”
The team finishes sorting all their fresh produce at midnight.
They’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to deliver to 8
restaurants, a grocery store, and a hospital.
(sound of Dish Deli)
When Gavlak brings her order, deli owner Donna Chriszt
inspects the cucumbers, rhubarb, and red skin potatoes.
“And our big bushel of corn. And everything looks great. It’s
always exciting when it comes in, because we’re like, ‘what
are we going to do with this?’”
This week, they’re planning rhubarb cobbler, potato salad
and fresh pickles for a neighborhood festival.
Gavlak smiles. He’s says it makes him feel good that the
business he and his college buddies designed, Fresh Fork,
is connecting farms and restaurants and getting people
fresh, locally grown food.
He finishes the order, and then walks into Chriszt’s deli to
have some lunch.
The "Great Plate" - a 10-inch plate: half non-starchy vegetables, a
quarter lean protein, a quarter starchy vegetable or whole grains (Photo courtesy of the University of Michigan)
Lots of companies are starting new programs
that teach their employees how to eat healthier.
Because healthier employees can save companies loads
of cash. Kyle Norris has more:
Transcript
Lots of companies are starting new programs
that teach their employees how to eat healthier.
Because healthier employees can save companies loads
of cash. Kyle Norris has more:
So, Stacy Witthoff is teaching people about healthy snacks.
“We have some 100 calorie packs. We have fresh fruit like bananas, peaches, pears,
apples, any kind of canned fruit is good too.”
Witthoff is a dietician with the Michigan Healthy Community – basically it’s a group that
does health education for University of Michigan employees.
The people at this expo are learning about how to eat healthier, and the idea is that they’ll
share this info with their co-workers.
Witthoff stands in front of a little booth and she’s all friendly. She snags people as they
walk by.
She’s just caught Jason Maynard. He’s a nursing administrator. And he goes to a lot of
meetings where there are a lot of snacks.
“So at meetings it’s probably donuts or bagels, cookies.”
But he thinks people would go for fresh fruit like raspberries or strawberries, if they were
offered.
Stacy Witthoff is promoting a guide that helps people make better food choices.
It’s called the Great Plate. It’s a picture of a plate that’s divided into different sections.
“Basically you take a 10-inch plate and half of it should be non-starchy vegetables, a
quarter of it lean protein, and a quarter of it starchy vegetable or whole grains. So it’s just
an easier way to eat healthy without having to think about portions.”
Ok let’s recap.
Divide your plate in-half and fill that half with non-starchy veggies – carrots, broccoli,
cauliflower, green beans, asparagus and peppers. And aim for a variety of colors.
Then divide the other half of the plate into quarters. Fill one-quarter with grains &
starchy veggies – that’s things like brown rice and whole-wheat pastas and whole-wheat
bread. And starchy veggies are things like potatoes, corn, peas, and squash.
Then the last quarter of the plate should have meats and proteins. Things like grilled
or baked chicken, fish, turkey, lean cuts of meat. And non-meat options like tofu, beans,
and eggs.
And the Great Plate says go for way smaller serving sizes.
The Great Plate encourages people to eat what they call “whole
foods.” That means eat the food in its raw form and not it’s processed equivalent. So
like eat the apple – as opposed to apple juice. Or as opposed to the apple-flavored gummi
worms, if you were someone like me.
Steve Aldana helps companies start employee healthcare programs. He says that
culturally we eat pretty bad stuff. And that we’re way stressed-out.
And all that can affect an employer’s pocketbook, for real.
“So 2 things: poor behaviors are leading to onset of chronic diseases. And those chronic
diseases are costing an inordinate amount in health care. And it’s that cost alone that’s
driving most companies to start to look very, very intently at worksite wellness
programs.”
Businesses are starting to see healthy employees as a smart investment. Companies like
Johnson & Johnson, IBM, and Dow Chemical have all taken note.
They hope programs like this one will help shave-off millions of dollars from their
employee health care costs.
And these programs can also help save money in the long run – by boosting employee
morale and leading to fewer employee absences.
Vegetables in the produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)
During the past 35 years, people have been getting
sick from contaminated produce more often. That’s according
to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
During the past 35 years, people have been getting
sick from contaminated produce more often. That’s according
to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Rebecca Williams reports:
After hundreds of people got sick from contaminated spinach and
lettuce, researchers started looking back at three decades of disease
cases. They found that people are getting sick from contaminated produce
more often. Bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella are often the cause.
Michael Lynch is one of the study’s authors. He says Americans are eating
more salads, but that doesn’t totally explain why there are more disease
outbreaks.
“We were a little surprised that that didn’t entirely explain the increase
but what else is contributing to that is not clear.”
Lynch says contamination can happen anywhere between the farm and your salad
plate. He says it’s important to thoroughly wash lettuce before eating it.
But he says that might not be enough to avoid getting sick.
He says stronger controls are needed at every step to try to prevent
contamination.
The jars are from a mildly more successful canning party than that described in our tale. If we can, you can, too. (Photo by Jennifer Szweda Jordan)
The Canning Club picture is from the 1918 book, Use Your Government:
What Your Government Does for You, by Alissa Franc.
It’s harvest season – that time of year when farmers are selling cucumbers,
tomatoes and corn for cheap because there’s such bounty. So what do you do
with that kind of surplus? Jennifer Szweda Jordan followed one author’s
advice for preserving:
Transcript
It’s harvest season – that time of year when farmers are selling cucumbers,
tomatoes and corn for cheap because there’s such bounty. So what do you do
with that kind of surplus? Jennifer Szweda Jordan followed one author’s
advice for preserving:
Not long ago, I heard an interview with author Barbara Kingsolver about her
newest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.
Kingsolver and her family spent a year mostly eating foods they’d harvested
on their own or bought from local farms. The idea was to prove to herself
that her family could live well while cutting down the fuel used in food
transportation. In the interview, she mentioned that the family had canning
parties. Well, that was enough to inspire me.
I ordered a half-bushel of tomatoes from a local organic farmer and headed
to Ann Murray’s house. Ann’s a friend and co-worker whose family used to
can:
“I have to tell you what my father says of canning, he says: eat what you can, what
you can’t, can, and it’s so true.”
As a kid in rural West Virginia, Ann was the shucker of corn and the snipper
of beans. She never had a leading role at the pressure cooker – that tightly
sealed pot with the frightening capacity to explode if handled incorrectly.
Like me, the friends who joined us, Robin Hewlett and Matt Willard don’t
know much about canning either.
For canning instruction we turn to the 1964 edition of The Joy of Cooking.
Check out the language in this book: “Good organization and proper
equipment simplify canning and give you, with a minimum of effort, gay-
looking shelves of glistening, jewel-like jars… all labeled and dated and
ready to use.”
Matt recalls a similar book from his childhood:
“My mom had the Betty Crocker cookbook from like 1965 and they had like
explicit pictures of the process and I always found it really intriguing to read
through that ’cause I was like, I live in NYC, no one cans here. That was so
far from my mind. I’m thinking of some person in Wyoming on a farm like
actually still canning… But now it’s coming full circle, it’s great.”
Not many people think much about canning these days. But the process has
a rich history. Learning to preserve food this way actually helped Napoleon
win wars. Now canning has made its way into Ann Murray’s kitchen, where
we’re waiting for a pot of water to boil. We’ve scalded, and skinned our
tomatoes. Now we lay out our plan for organization that Joy of Cooking
promises will leave us with glistening jars:
(Sound of people talking while canning)
Anyway, what do we know? We try to get the right amount of tomatoes in
the jar – not too much so they’ll explode, but not so little that we’re mostly
packing water.
We submerge eight quarts into boiling water and wait what seems like a very
long 45 minutes. Ann throws us a bone to keep us going:
“They’re lookin’ beautiful, guys. Lookin like my mother’s cupboard.”
Since Ann’s the only one with actual canning memories, we’re all ears:
“I just remember it being really hot outside, incredibly hot, steamy in the kitchen. I felt like my mom was sacrificing a little so
we could have canned stuff. But it was always so great to open it up in the
middle of the winter.”
At the end of six hours, we only have 12 quarts of tomato jars to show for it.
I’m a little disappointed because I wish we could’ve been more efficient. I
mean, it’s a good thing we’re not in the French military, right, because we, like,
seriously couldn’t survive on this:
(Hewlett:) ” I feel like the sitting around and the canning is part of the social canning party
aspect.”
They eventually had me convinced that we were productive enough. Until I
did some searches on the internet about canning parties. In a 1918 book
called Use Your Government: What Your Government Does For
You, there are tables listing teams of Kansas canners and their output.
If I read correctly, Mrs. P.W. Rieger, aided by 17-year-old Bernadette
Rieger, canned 622 and one half quarts of fruit, vegetables, soups and meats.
Wow, I wonder if I’m too old to join 4-H?
For The Environment Report, this is Jennifer Szweda Jordan.
The USDA's food pyramid. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
The USDA food pyramid shows the amounts and kinds of foods that are healthy to eat. But the food pyramid is not simply about eating right. Money and politics play a big role in this symbol. Kyle Norris takes a look:
Transcript
The USDA food pyramid shows the amounts and kinds
of foods that are healthy to eat. But the food pyramid is
not simply about eating right. Money and politics play a
big role in this symbol. Kyle Norris takes a look:
You’ve heard of the food pyramid, right?
“I can see the picture of the food pyramid… I think it’s how much of each type of food you’re
supposed to eat.”
“The food pyramid is like non-existent
in my day-to-day reality.”
“Yeah, I didn’t really understand what the point of the food pyramid was.”
The pyramid is a visual tool that the United States
Department of Agriculture created in the 1990s to help
people know what to eat. The USDA has advised
people about nutrition for a long time.
Throughout the past century, nutritional advice was
generally a message to eat more food and a wider
variety of food, and eventually people did eat more
food… too much food. And overeating and chronic
diseases became a problem.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, the
message about nutrition changed. The government said
scale back. Eat less. And this caused an uproar, and it
still does:
“Food companies are upset about it because they don’t
want the government telling people to eat less of the
products they manufacture.”
That’s Marion Nestle. She’s a professor of Nutrition,
Food Studies, and Public Health at New York
University. She also wrote the book “Food Politics:”
“This is health conflicting with business interests
basically, and since food companies, among other
corporations, fund election campaigns, elected leaders
need to listen to them. And since elected leaders control
what goes on in federal agencies, federal agencies need
to listen to elected leaders. That’s how our political
system works.”
Here’s what happens from that trickle down effect:
Corporations influence the food pyramid. So, the
pyramid’s wording of what and how much you should
eat gets watered-down and un-specific, so as not to
offend the food companies.
Here’s Nestle again:
“We don’t have an independent voice in the government
advising the public about diet and health because
if the government were to advise the public
about diet and health, it would have to tell people to eat
less junk food. And it can’t do that… Because the companies
that produce the junk food wouldn’t stand for it.”
It’s not only junk food companies that freak out about
what the government says you should eat. The meat
industry threw a fit when the pyramid was going to be
released in 1991.
The pyramid said those awful, hurtful words about
meat: “Eat less.”
So the USDA yanked the pyramid, tweaked it ever so
slightly, and re-released it the next year. The food
industry made a lot of squawk about the pyramid. You
have to wonder what kind of pressure that had on the
USDA.
Jackie Haven is a USDA nutritionist:
“I really, there’s really nothing I have to say on that
issue. I don’t feel we had pressure from anybody and…
Can we move to something else?
Okay, so, she wouldn’t say much.
But you have to wonder if the USDA had a conflict of
interest here. Their key job is to promote agriculture in
the marketplace. And yet they tell us what we should eat.
Marion Nestle says the USDA does have a conflict of
interest:
“Its main function
is to sell more products not less. It’s the fox guarding
the chicken… certainly not the place
where you have independent advice about what to eat.
The USDA created the new “mypyramid.gov” in 2005.
They’ve dubbed it an “interactive food guidance
system.” About the only way you can get to it is online.
You punch in your age, weight, and height. You also
type in how physically active you are each day. Then it
spits out a personalized plan.
My My Pyramid plan said that every day I should eat about 7
ounces of grains, 3 cups veggies, 2 cups fruit, 3 cups of
milk, and 6 ounces of meat and beans. I don’t know
how to translate that information. I mean, I don’t really measure my
apples in cups. And three cups of milk?
The new My Pyramid’s wording is delicate. It says things like “Most meat and poultry choices should be lean or lowfat.” “Include” this,
“Choose” that. Not very specific suggestions.
Marion Nestle says there’s no evidence that the public
understands the original pyramid. She says even fewer
people understand the new My Pyramid. The food
pyramid has always been controversial. Its stated
purpose is to help us eat healthier.
The political reality is that pressure from the food
industry makes it very difficult for the pyramid to clearly say
what is really best for our health.
Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the south to the plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:
Transcript
Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the South to the Plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:
Paul Peters has 500 acres of apples and peaches in central Missouri. Peters
says above average temperatures during the day and night advanced the
growing season by 2-3 weeks:
“We really didn’t cool down at night; I think probably was more of a concern then
reaching 60-70 degrees in the daytime. One of my partners here said he’d never seen an
apple blossom in March and this year he did.”
But then a week-long frost hit, right when crops were at their most
vulnerable.
Extensive damage has also been reported on crops of winter wheat, grapes
and cherries.
Some farmers will be able to till under failed wheat and alfalfa crops and
substitute corn. However, it may not be that simple since corn seed supplies
are already tight from higher than normal plantings for ethanol production.
Apple and cherry farmers are concerned phasing out an effective pesticide will affect production and leave more pesticide residue. (Photo by Lester
Graham)
Environmentalists are worried about the health of farm workers exposed to AZM.
(Photo by Lester Graham)
The EPA has granted a six-year reprieve for fruit growers to continue to use a highly toxic pesticide. But the decision to eventually phase it out is an uneasy compromise. Environmental health advocates say the delay continues to put farm workers and their families at risk. But growers say they haven’t yet found an effective replacement. Bob Allen reports:
Transcript
The EPA has granted a six-year reprieve for fruit growers to continue to use a
highly toxic pesticide. But the decision to eventually phase it out is an uneasy
compromise. Environmental health advocates say the delay continues to put
farm workers and their families at risk. But growers say they haven’t yet found
an effective replacement. Bob Allen reports:
No one wants Gramma to find a worm when she opens a can of cherries to make
a holiday pie.
According to regulations, inspectors have to make sure cherries coming to market
are worm free. And that puts big pressure on growers when they bring fruit out
of the orchard.
“And you know there’s a zero tolerance for worms. And if they find one worm
they can reject, not just that load, they can reject your whole crop for that
season.”
Francis Otto oversees pesticide spraying for one of the largest cherry orchards
along the west side of Michigan.
For decades those who grow cherries and apples have relied mostly on one
chemical to keep their fruit worm-free. Some call it the hammer. It knocks
down every insect in the orchard for several days. Then it degrades quickly
under sunlight and rain. It’s called azinphos methyl or AZM.
A generation ago workers were directly exposed when they mixed the chemical.
But things have improved since then.
Francis Otto fingers a safer pre-measured packet of AZM.
“It’s called a water soluble packet inside of an overwrap so I can pick this bag up
of azinphos and this plastic bag that it’s actually in dissolves in the water. And so
workers are not exposed to the actual materials.”
That kind of protection is not enough to satisfy groups that sued the EPA on
behalf of farm workers and their families.
Shelly Davis is an attorney with Farmworker Justice. She thinks AZM is just too
toxic to use at all and it ought to be phased-out right away.
“It’s so toxic that if you make the slightest error people are going to get hurt.
>From moderate senses of nausea, vomiting, weakness to convulsions or death.”
There’s no record of anyone dying from AZM. And incidents of serious
poisoning are fairly rare.
But Shelly Davis is mainly worried about effects from low-level exposure to
workers over a long time.
Studies show workers bring pesticides home on their shoes and clothing. It’s in
the dust in their houses where children play.
In Oregon, migrant workers exposed to AZM showed slower reaction times on
tests of how quickly their brains respond than those who don’t work in the
orchards.
“This is a ticking time bomb. Because when children get exposed it gets to the
effect that it can affect their intellectual functioning over time.”
But health researchers are careful to point out there’s no direct link established
between AZM exposure and learning deficits.
As a precaution, they recommend reducing children’s exposure as much as
possible.
EPA is cutting in half the amount of AZM that can be sprayed over the next six
years until it’s phased out. And workers will have to wait 14 days to re-enter a
sprayed orchard instead of 48 hours.
Mark Whalon runs the pesticide alternative lab at Michigan State University.
He’s experimenting with less toxic materials. He says they have to be sprayed
more often and much closer to harvest than AZM to be effective.
Whalon also has spent 25 years developing ways for growers to keep insects in
check other than using chemicals.
“And now we’re going to have to start over again with these new reduced
compounds because they have a whole different set of impacts that we’ve got to
learn all over again.”
Whalon says EPA doesn’t have good data on what the long-term health effects
might be from exposure to the alternative pesticides.
But Shelly Davis with Farmworker Justice says she’d prefer the unknown effects
from much less toxic materials than the sure danger of AZM.
Either way, Francis Otto at Cherry Bay Orchards says something’s got to give.
The alternative pesticides he’s tried are way more expensive but not as effective
as AZM.
Yet he’s still expected to deliver apples and cherries to the buying public free of
insect damage for the same price.
Researchers have studied where a very rare bird spends the summer, but now they’re learning they might need to pay more attention to where it spends the winter. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
Researchers have studied where a very rare bird spends the summer, but
now they’re learning they might need to pay more attention to where it
spends the winter. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:
The Kirtland’s warbler is one of the rarest songbirds in North America.
It spends the summer near the Great Lakes, mostly in Michigan, and the
winter in the Bahamas. The bird’s been on the endangered species list
since 1966. Efforts to control predators and manage habitat in
Michigan have helped the warbler recover, but scientists haven’t known
much about what the warbler needs in winter.
Dave Ewert is the director of conservation science for the Nature
Conservancy’s Great Lakes program. He says his team’s research
indicates that warblers are fattening up on fruit right before they
leave the Bahamas in the spring.
“So if we can identify these sites that produce a lot of food just
before migration, we think that may be a really important key for
conservation implementation in the Bahamas in the future.”
Ewert says the team will need a few more years of research before
recommending specific sites to preserve in the Bahamas.
A recent study showed climate change was resulting in stronger hurricanes, and some years, Florida, with all of its orange groves, has been devastated by those storms. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
