We’re all for loving thy neighbor. The occasional batch of freshly baked brownies, a few extra basil plants, a cup of flour for a recipe—these are all great neighborly gifts.

Here’s what’s not a neighborly gift: pesticides.

From an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, we learned that an organic farmer in California is suing a company that he says caused his crops to test positive for pesticides:

Organic Jacobs Farms is suing Western Farm Services, a Fresno company that provides and applies pesticides for conventional farmers. The suit, filed by Larry Jacobs, seeks to stop the spraying of pesticides that could travel to his field and an unspecified amount of money to cover the crops he says he lost. The farmer who owns the conventional field is not named in the suit.

The pesticides apparently were applied correctly and did not blow onto the organic field, which would be illegal. Instead, all involved think they were picked up by fog, which can turn pesticides into liquid and carry them off days after they were sprayed.

Conventional farmers are worried that if the organic farmer wins, the case will set a dangerous precedent, and conventional farms in foggy areas will have to spend millions to contain their pesticides.

But, champions of the underdog that we are, we couldn’t help but consider the organic farmer’s plight. Federal organic standards are so demanding these days that even the slightest trace of pesticide residue on a crop can prevent it from getting the much-coveted organic label—and that means a loss in profits for the farmer. 

In what we can only assume was an effort to explain why he thought his client should win, defense attorney Dale. M. Dorfmeier offered his analysis of the situation:

"What happens is, an organic farmer comes in with small acres in the middle of this intensive operation and then gets inadvertent drift that contaminates his crop," Dorfmeier said. "Then the demand is, 'Everyone else quit their practices so I can farm organic.'"

Well, gosh, now wouldn’t that be terrible?

Posted by Kiera Butler on May 10, 2007 at 11:38 AM
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