Page 94 - Spring2020

In other if the tests were changed to focus on where type of meat, so it impacts all livestock farmers

words, we there was an actual human health risk—that is, and their processors.

test for the main strains that cause the most ill-
There are several possible outcomes of this
have a system nesses, and set a standard based on when there petition. USDA may simply reject it (as it has
that doesn’t is enough salmonella present to make someone with previous petitions). USDA may identify a
work to stop sick. Notably, the agency staff did not disagree handful of strains as adulterants—which would
with the logic of that approach. Instead, the impose significant burdens on the plants that
the sale of staff raised concerns about “perception” and have those strains present. Arguably, if the
tainted meat, the blowback the agency would receive if it was USDA also stopped the pointless performance
but that is viewed as “lowering standards.” tests for all strains, this could be a good outcome
In other words, we have a system that overall. But the USDA may also identify some
penalizing doesn’t work to stop the sale of tainted meat, strains as adulterants and continue with the
small but that is penalizing small producers who performance testing, which would be the worst
producers aren’t selling dangerous products. And they of both worlds.
who aren’t can’t change it because it would look bad.

Lots of people get sick from salmonella, FARMER WINS LAWSUIT
selling and the agency wants to look like it’s doing AGAINST BAYER
dangerous something and being as strict as possible. The Shifting attention to the plant side of agri-
products. current tests are not only super-sensitive, but culture, there is some encouraging news. In mid-
they are quicker than tests that look for specific February, a jury found that the agrichemical
strains or quantify the levels of bacteria present. corporations Bayer and BASF should pay two
And the situation is evolving. The USDA staff hundred fifty million dollars in punitive dam-
noted a new factor in their considerations: a peti- ages and fifteen million dollars in compensatory
tion filed by Bill Marler, the Seattle lawyer who damages to farmer Bill Bader.
represented hundreds of victims in the Jack in Bader is a peach farmer in Campbell, Mis-
the Box food poisoning case in the 1990s. Two souri, who sued the companies after more than
decades ago, Marler courted the media to get thirty thousand of his trees were damaged due
the E. coli bacteria on the agenda of policymak- to drifting of dicamba, an herbicide developed
ers, and he played a key role in getting USDA by BASF and Monsanto (purchased by Bayer in
to outlaw the most virulent strains of E. coli in 2018). After dicamba damaged the Bader Farms
meat. He was a major player in the passage of trees, the peach harvest dropped from an aver-
the Food Safety Modernization Act, and his abil- age of one hundred sixty-two thousand bushels
ity to influence legislators and agency officials in the early 2000s to twelve thousand bushels
should not be underestimated. in 2018—a loss of more than 92 percent!
Marler recently submitted a petition to Dicamba is an herbicide used to kill weeds
USDA to label thirty-one different strains of in corn, soybeans and other food crops. By the
salmonella as “adulterants,” with a zero-toler- end of 2020, the EPA must determine whether
ance approach. Previous petitions have taken a to renew the two-year extension it gave in 2018,
more reasonable stance, focusing on the three or allowing farmers to continue its use.
four strains that truly cause the most problems. Monsanto developed dicamba-resistant
(USDA rejected the most recent one in 2018.) In seeds called Xtend to be planted in conjunc-
contrast, Marler’s petition includes every strain tion with the use of the dicamba formulation
of salmonella that has made anyone sick in the Xtendimax. From the beginning, the Xtend
last two decades. And it fails to recognize that, crop system has caused problems for all kinds
unlike E. coli, salmonella can be in the animal’s of farmers. Famers growing both organic and
lymph nodes, and thus can be found on the meat conventional (not genetically-modified) soybean
even if there was no fecal contamination. and cotton have suffered losses. And “specialty
The petition seeks to have these thirty-one crop” farmers, raising peaches, grapes and broc-
strains of salmonella declared adulterants in any coli, have faced a crisis.
94 Wise Traditions SPRING 2020