Chains...my Mama's got me locked up in chains...

Top of the Food Chain

by Richard Heinberg on November 25, 2008

Today comes the startling news of a British government report showing a drop in oceanic zooplankton of 73 percent since 1960.

For many people, this may seem relatively inconsequential as compared to daily cataclysmic revelations about the state of the national and global economy. This reaction is understandable: we care first and foremost about our own immediate survival prospects, and a new and greater Depression will mean millions losing their homes, millions more their jobs. It's nothing to look forward to.

It takes some scientific literacy to appreciate the implications of the catastrophic loss of microscopic sea animals. We need to understand that these are food for crustaceans and fish, which are food for sea birds and mammals. We need to appreciate the importance of the oceanic food web in the planetary biosphere.

At the top of the global food chain sits a species that we really do care about—Homo sapiens. The ongoing disappearance of zooplankton, amphibians, butterflies, and bees is tied directly or indirectly to the continuing growth of our own species—both in population (there are nearly seven billion of us large-bodied omnivores, more than any other mammal) and in consumptive voracity (water, food, minerals, energy, forests—you name it).

It's at this point in the discussion that some of us start feeling guilty for being human, and others of us tune the conversation out because there's apparently not much we can do to fundamentally change the demographic and economic growth trends our species has been pursuing for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

But the current economic Armageddon (that we care about) is related to human-induced biodiversity loss (that many of us don't notice) in systemic ways. Both result from pyramid schemes: borrowing and leveraging money on one hand; on the other, using temporary fossil energy to capture ever more biosphere services so as to grow human population and consumption to unsustainable levels. Our economic pyramid is built out of great hewn blocks of renewable and non-renewable resources that are being made unavailable to other organisms as well as to future generations of humans.

The financial meltdown tells us these trends can't go on forever. How the mighty have fallen!—Masters of the Universe reduced to begging for billion-dollar handouts in front of a television audience.

Next will come a human demographic collapse (resulting from the economic crisis, with poor folks unable to afford food or shelter), as mortality begins to exceed fertility.

In all of this it's important to remember that the species on the lower levels of the biodiversity pyramid have been paying the price for our exuberance all along.

The pyramid appears to collapse from the top, while in fact its base has been crumbling for some time.

Going Local with Peak Moment TV

A Renaissance of Local

The 2007 “A Renaissance of Local” was the first annual Boulder county-wide community festival, conference and expo. This uplifting celebration of local food, local energy, local economy, local culture, and local community was an energizing focus for Boulder County Going Local! in their campaign to build community self-sufficiency and strengthen the local economy through partnership, collaboration, and engagement. Presented by Boulder County Going Local, co-sponsored by Post Carbon Institute.

The 6-DVD set includes the following presentations. Each DVD can be ordered separately. [Add the online link for each presentation on Google video]. Reduced price: individual DVDs $15, or six-DVD set or $70

Disc 1: Local Business and Economy

1 Local Living Economies: Green, Fair and Fun, Judy Wicks, White Dog Café (Philadelphia, PA)
2 Independent Business Alliances: A Movement Born in Boulder, Jeff Milchen, American Independent Business Alliance (Boseman, MT)
3 Earth, Economy, Equity: Integrating Green Principles in Small Business, Michael Johnson, ReDirect Guide (Portland, OR)
4 Local Sustainability: Economics from the Inside Out, Mark Wilding, Marpa Center for Business and Economics, Naropa University (Boulder, CO)
5 Going Green: Good for Business, Dan King, Ambassador of Cool, Boulder Outlook Hotel & Suites (Boulder, CO)
6 Challenges of a Locally-Owned Independent Business, David Hight, McGuckin Hardware (Boulder, CO)

Disc 2: Peak Energy

7 Peak Oil: When and Then What? Steve Andrews, Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA (Denver)
8 Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute (Santa Rosa, CA)
9 The Truth About Everything, Richard Brenne (Boulder, CO)

Disc 3: Communities Preparing for Peak Oil

10 Preparing Our Communities for Climate and Energy Change, Julian Darley, Post Carbon Institute (Sebastopol, CA)
11 Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty -- Guidelines for Local Governments, Daniel Lerch, Post Carbon Institute (Portland, OR)
12 Envisioning the Post Fossil Fuel World, Leslie Glustrom, Clean Energy Action (Boulder, CO)

Disc 4: Energy and Resources

13 Colorado’s New Energy Economy, Tom Plant, Governor’s Energy Office, State of Colorado
14 Sustainable Energy: Going Local and Regional to Power the New Energy Economy, Aaron Perry, Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises (Boulder, CO)
15 The Technical and Human Dimensions of Going Local, Mark Sardella, Local Energy (Santa Fe, NM)
16 The Nexus of Food, Energy and Water, Michael Bowman, (Wray, CO)

Disc 5: Living Locally

17 Relocalization: Making Friends with an Unthinkable Future, Michael Brownlee, Boulder Valley Relocalization, Boulder County Going Local!
18 Resources, Religion and War—Ethical Living in a World in Decline, Marshall Vian Summers, The Society for the Greater Community Way of Knowledge (Boulder, CO)
19 Waking Up to Humanity’s Greatest Challenge, John Feeney, Growth is Madness! (Boulder, CO)
20 A Permaculture Perspective: Living in Authenticity During Energy Descent, Bill Wilson, Midwest Permaculture (Stelle, IL)

Disc 6: Local Media

21 Whole Systems Sensing: Defibrillating Possibility, Brook Le Van, Sustainable Settings (Carbondale, CO)
22 Blending Local Art with Local Agriculture in Placer County, Joanne Neft, Placer County Agricultural Marketing Program (Auburn, CA)
23 A Video Buffet of Local, Janaia Donaldson, Peak Moment Television (Nevada City, CA)
24 The LOCAL as Transformative Tool, Bob Banner, HopeDance Magazine (San Luis Obispo, CA)

24 presentations: 25 to 70 minutes each.

6-DVD Set: $100.00 Sale price $70.00

Single DVD: $20.00 Sale price $15.00 Disc 1 Disc 2 Disc 3 Disc 4 Disc 5 Disc 6

Communities Preparing for Energy and Climate Change

These five presentations from "A Renaissance of Local" provide a conceptual framework for responding to climate change and declining energy resources, with examples of communities working toward self-reliance and strengthening their local economies.

• Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
• Preparing Our Communities for Climate and Energy Change, Julian Darley, Post Carbon Institute
• Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty -- Guidelines for Local Governments, Daniel Lerch, Post Carbon Institute
• Relocalization: Making Friends with an Unthinkable Future, Michael Brownlee, Boulder Valley Relocalization, Boulder County Going Local!
• A Video Buffet of Local, Janaia Donaldson, Peak Moment Television

5 presentations: 30 to 70 minutes each.

2-DVD set: Introductory price $25.00

Porkorchard for pest-free fruit.

Sepp Holzer at the Krameterhof farm in Austria (where I took the photo) has been using pigs to keep his orchards free of pests and competing weeds and grasses. He has 30,000 fruit trees that require no pruning, fertilizing, or spraying thanks to the pigs. Here's a clip from his website about classes being offered in the Pacific Northwest:

"For more than 40 years now, Sepp Holzer, the agricultural rebel has been transforming his family farm in the Lungau district in the Austrian Alps into an eco-paradise of fishing ponds, ten thousands of fruit trees, shrubs, vines and highly productive vegetables and herbs. Here, at an altitude of 1500 meters (~5000 feet) in the "Siberia of Austria", he has created a self-sustaining landscape in which he produces many varieties of the best quality fish, fruits, nuts, vegetables, mushrooms, pork, poultry and even citrus without irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides or weeding.

By observing nature and experimenting with his own garden from childhood on, he developed his own form of Permaculture, which is already the subject of scientific research. He cleverly uses ecological relationships and cycles, letting nature do the work for him with minimal labor input while providing optimum living conditions for his plants and animals. In this way he creates an eco-paradise which also achieves maximized economic success from his farming activities.

He has become famous far beyond the German-speaking world. His farm, the "Krameterhof" has become a symbol for a new kind of farming with hundreds of busses of visitors touring it every year. Sepp also acts as a consultant to a large number of projects all over Europe and the world, including Scotland, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Thailand, creating new croplands from depleted soils in harsh and difficult conditions. The principles of Sepp Holzer's Permaculture are simple and can be applied in any climate, by anyone, on any scale. These principles can empower anyone to develop a more sustainable life style and create their own highly productive eco-paradise, from the balcony garden to the family farm.

From February 19th to March 14th, 2009, Sepp Holzer and his son Joseph Andreas Holzer, will be visiting the United States, conducting The Secrets of Eden series of interviews, talks, and two day workshops in the Pudget Sound region of Washington State and the Portland area in Oregon. In each hands-on workshop a Holzer Permaculture project will be explained and created, such as ponds, terraces, fertile mounds (Huegelbeds), earth-bermed chicken coops and horse shelters, herb and vegetable spirals and craters, companion planting and plant communities. In January and February, 2009, videos screenings throughout the Pudget Sound region will give an introduction to Sepp Holzer and his dynamic approach to Permaculture.

Here's further confirmation of the orcharding with pigs technique:

Apple Farmer Uses Pigs Instead of Pesticides

Who needs toxic chemicals when cute little piggies do the job?

By Samantha Cleaver

Jim Koan is doing something revolutionary on his Flushing, MI farm. Or, is he? Instead of using pesticides to rid his orchard of a pest, Koan is going old school and using pigs.

Koan’s 120-acre apple farm in has been plagued by the Plum Curculio Beetle that lays its eggs in apples and makes the fruit drop too early from trees. He could have used frequent sprays of pesticides for years to get rid of the beetles, or he could use pigs. (He tried chickens and guineas, but they weren’t hard enough workers and the guineas were taken away by hawks. He contemplated sheep, too, but in the end hard-working pigs, too big for any hawk or coyote to steal, were the best bet.) Now he has a group of pigs who shuffle through the orchards when the apples infected with beetles start to fall. They eat the apples and the eggs that would have spelled disaster for next year’s crop, and clear the ground and eat weeds in the process. The pigs make short work of an apple orchard, eating every last contaminated apple. And, bonus: once the pigs have solved the beetle problem, Koan plans to sell them as organic pork.

So, revolutionary or not, pigs are a refreshing idea.

Original link...

Sulfamethazine Salad: Antibiotics in Vegetables

For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. Now scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in unexpected places: Vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure, according to tests conducted at the University of Minnesota.

Today, close to 70 percent of all antibiotics and related drugs used in the United States are routinely fed to cattle, pigs and poultry, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Although this practice sustains a growing demand for meat, it also generates public health fears associated with the expanding presence of antibiotics in the food chain.

People have long been exposed to antibiotics in meat and milk. Now, the new research shows that they also may be ingesting them from vegetables, perhaps even ones grown on organic farms.

The Minnesota researchers planted corn, green onion and cabbage in manure-treated soil in 2005 to evaluate the environmental impacts of feeding antibiotics to livestock. Six weeks later, the crops were analyzed and found to absorb chlortetracycline, a drug widely used to treat diseases in livestock. In another study two years later, corn, lettuce and potato were planted in soil treated with liquid hog manure. They, too, accumulated concentrations of an antibiotic, named Sulfamethazine, also commonly used in livestock.

As the amount of antibiotics in the soil increased, so too did the levels taken up by the corn, potatoes and other plants.

Read the rest here...

Transition Partnership with Relocalization!

To all members of the Transition US community:

It is with great pleasure that I write to tell you that we have secured seed funding to support the growth of the Transition movement in the US. This funding, which comes as a combination of cash and in-kind services, is being provided by Post Carbon Institute, with whom we expect to develop a strong strategic alliance. The agreement not only provides us with funding sufficient to support an Executive Director but also gives us immediate non-profit status.

Post Carbon Institute will no longer be providing active support to the Relocalization Network (RN). Instead we will be working with members of the RN to inspire them to join Transition US, where they will be able to share their experiences and know-how with other Transition Initiatives. Please help in the process of welcoming RN members into Transition US and supporting them in whatever ways you can.

We are in the process of forming a Board of Directors for the non-profit Transition US. For purposes of moving forward quickly, the initial members of the Board are to be Pamela Gray and Jennifer Gray, founders of Transition US, together with Asher Miller, Executive Director of Post Carbon Institute and Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. Peter Lipman, Chair of the Transition Network Board of Trustees has been asked and has agreed to join the Transition US Board. Together with Pamela's participation as a Transition Network Trustee, this will enable us to stay in close touch with decisions taken in the UK.

The negotiations for this agreement took place very quickly in the last few weeks of 2008. It was a surprise to all involved that we could find a way to work together to the benefit of both organizations without coming across barriers that would cause delays. Please accept my apologies for not involving more of you in the decision-making but it was not possible to do so in the time allowed. In the future we will be posting news of developments on the Transition US web site. Our web site will be redesigned and developed over the next few months as a result of the investment.

Following the tremendous success of the trainings that took place in the latter part of 2008, and the steady stream of new Transition Initiatives that are appearing in the US, 2009 will be a year of rapid growth for the US Transition Movement. We must act collectively to prepare our communities to build resilience in the face of change. By continuing to work together, sharing ideas, resources and experiences wherever possible, we will be able to show communities the way to a future that holds the promise of being happy, healthy and strong.

Best wishes and Happy New Year,

Pamela
Transition US
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Transition Network - tackling peak oil and climate change together
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Pamela A Gray, PhD
Trustee, Transition Network
77 Del Casa Drive
Mill Valley, CA 94941

It Could Be Worse.....

Reasons for Good Cheer
By Sharon Astyk

In the last couple of months, several major peak oil activists have confided to me that they have had moments of despair. In each case, these were not ”doomers” or people who have long since thrown up their hands - instead, these are people making a difference, with viable plans for shifting the way we live, and they suddenly came up against painful economic reality - that the investments they’d hoped we [would] make, many quite modest - simply aren’t going to get made.

For many people who imagined peak oil as a steady build up in energy prices, or marked volatility, but trending upwards and leading only eventually to an economic collapse, the sudden shift into credit crisis is a crisis indeed - all of the signals that high energy prices were sending are erased now, and while demand is falling, so is the ability to invest in infrastructure.

On the other hand, since I never thought most people or governments would be able to make massive infrastructure changes, I’m probably less traumatized. And in the vast and traumatic mess that we are facing, I’m seeing some surprising signs of hope - not that we’ll magically reshape our society into the renewable paradise a lot of us would like to see, but that people are well, not acting like complete idiots - that they are responding to things fairly appropriately, even wisely sometimes.

For example, yesterday, NPR reported that the CEO of Walmart noted that people were spending a lot less - and most remarkably, they were saying how good they feel about not spending that money. In the context of a convention of American retailers, this was not good news. In the context of the human future, this news should have been trumpeted from the rooftops.

In fact, the people are turning out to be rather clever (as long as we don’t look to closely at SUV sales) - that is, even though every freakin’ economist and policy advisor, not to mention CNBC were lying to us and saying the crisis wasn’t much and if it was much it was practically over, Americans actually figured out what was going on, stopped spending so much, and started the hard and painful work of retrenching. Even at Christmas they managed to resist the increasingly plaintive calls of retailers to spend more money on stupid crap. It is easy to understate how radical this is - the people understood we were in a crisis that required a massive behavior change long before almost everyone else did. This is the sort of thing that restores faith in the value of democracy.

Meanwhile, in a speech, Barack Obama, who isn’t even President yet, actually used the “S” word - the one I’ve been begging people to use for years now. He called for sacrifice from the American people - and the response so far was heartening, as I expected - people think that this is being taken seriously, because, after all, they are being asked to help out.

Oh, and Obama is moving his mother in law into the White House with him and his family. Not only is this a really good thing for his kids, since the parents will be on the busy side, but it is also a damned good thing for the nation, which is filled with people who have been told over and over again that they couldn’t possibly live with their families - that doing so means you are pathetic and worthless, and that families are awful. And now they will have no choice - so seeing someone do it voluntarily can only help.

Meanwhile, gardening is booming - seed companies are topping last year’s records, and there are more and more people looking to food production as a strategy for weathering the tough times.

Nearly everyone I know who has spent the last few years talking about coming tough times is starting to hear shifts in the culture - people are taking this seriously, and that means that it is possible for many of us to find someone else in our neighborhood or community to share the burden with.

Now there’s plenty of awful news. The economy sucks. The situation sucks. A whole lot of stuff is going badly - this is not meant as mere cheerleading. But the point is this - on some level, we all know we’re probably on our own. And there are some real signs that ordinary people, left to themselves, are responding more gracefully and imaginatively than might have been expected. And that is reason for cheer.

Learning to Feed Ourselves - Growing Power

If crisis offers any yield at all its the efforts of regular folks like this honing their skills as they respond to the opportunities and challenges of rapid change. Something like this should, and could, appear and serve communities everywhere.

Remember, most of the ecovillages of the world do not require building, they're already there, called neighborhoods. What's needed is to connect more of each neighborhood to more of itself. Some neighbors simply haven't recognized where they are and who's there with them.

When yield shows up in tangible and tasty ways like this (with training included) the adoption of successful practices can be more easily spread.

More power to us all.
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In 1993, Growing Power was an organization with teens who needed a place to work.

Will Allen was a farmer with land.

Will designed a program that offered teens an opportunity to work at his store and renovate the greenhouses to grow food for their community. What started as a simple partnership to change the landscape of the north side of Milwaukee has blossomed into a national and global commitment to sustainable food systems.

Since its inception, Growing Power has served as a ”living museum” or “idea factory” for the young, the elderly, farmers, producers, and other professionals ranging from USDA personnel to urban planners. Training areas include the following: acid-digestion, anaerobic digestion for food waste, bio-phyto remediation and soil health, aquaculture closed-loop systems, vermiculture, small and large scale composting, urban agriculture, perma-culture, food distribution, marketing, value-added product development, youth development, community engagement, participatory leadership development, and project planning.

Community Food Centers are local places where people can learn sustainable practices to grow, process, market, and distribute food. The prototype for Community Food Centers, as mentioned in our mission, is the Growing Power facility at 5500 W. Silver Spring Drive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This historic two-acre farm is the last remaining farm and greenhouse operation in the City of Milwaukee. Since 1999, our Community Food Center has provided a wonderful space for hands-on activities,large-scale demonstration projects, and for growing a myriad of plants, vegetables, and herbs.In a space no larger than a small supermarket live some 20,000 plants and vegetables, thousands of fish, and a livestock inventory of chickens, goats, ducks, rabbits, and bees.

Will Allen, Chief Executive Officer thinks, "If people can grow safe, healthy, affordable food, if they have access to land and clean water, this is transformative on every level in a community. I believe we cannot have healthy communities without a healthy food system."

A simple goal: to grow food, to grow minds, and to grow community. Growing Power began with a farmer, a plot of land, and a core group of dedicated young people. Today, our love of the land and our dedication to sharing knowledge is changing lives.

GROW:
Projects and Growing Methods - Growing Power demonstrates its easy to replicate growing methods through on-site workshops and hands-on demonstrations. There are farms in Milwaukee and Merton, Wisconsin, and in Chicago, Illinois. Growing Power has also established satellite-training sites in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Mississippi.

BLOOM:
Education and Technical Assistance - Growing Power's educates folks through local, national, and international outreach for farmers and communities. We also run youth programs, have an active volunteer base, and actively work on policy initiatives regarding agriculture.

THRIVE:
Production and Distribution - Food production occurs in the organization's demonstration greenhouses, rural farm site in Merton, and urban farms in Milwaukee and Chicago. We also distribute produce, grass-based meats, and value-added products through the activities of over 300 small family farmers in the Rainbow Farmers Cooperative and the organization's year-round food security program the Farm-to-City Market Basket Program.

The urban farm currently includes:

• six greenhouses growing over 12,000 pots of herbs, salad mix, beet greens, arugula, mustards, seedlings, sunflower and radish sprouts. These greenhouses also host production of six hydroponic systems growing Tilapia, Perch, and a variety of herb and salad greens, and over 50 bins of red wriggler worms; with two independent fish runs and growing beds for additional salad mix and seedlings; growing a mixture of salad greens;
• a worm depository an apiary with 5 beehives;
  
• three poultry hoop houses with laying hens and ducks;
  
• outdoor pens for livestock including goats, rabbits, and turkeys;
  
• a large plot of land on which the first stage of the organization’s sophisticated composting operation is located including 30 pallet compost systems;
  
• an anaerobic digester to produce energy from the farm's food waste;
  
• and a small retail store to sell produce, meat, worm castings, and compost to the community.

The center offers schools, universities, government agencies, farmers, activists, and community members opportunities to learn from and participate in the development and operation of Community Food Systems.

EROEI - The Eros of Energy

Energy Investment - Energy Return

Independent financial consultant Jim Hansen runs every investment through the “peak oil test”. In this presentation from the ASPO-USA 2008 conference, he explores traditional energy investments; opportunities in renewables, rail, and electrifying the transportation system; areas to avoid like airlines and trucking; and what to watch, like electric cars and the unwinding of globalization.

In this interview, ecologist and professor Charlie Hall looks at energy return on energy invested. Whether it’s a cheetah chasing antelope, or humans making ethanol — the energy we get back has to exceed the energy we put in, or the story is over. He compares oil’s energy return in the 1930’s (1 calorie invested returned 100 calories of energy) with the current situation (1:12) and still declining.

Presenters respond to the final question in the Q&A session at the close of ASPO-USA’s 2008 conference: how do we better harness the intellect, energy and commitment at this conference, and what one thing would you have people ask an elected official to do about peak oil?

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This is seventh Peak Moment Conversation videotaped at ASPO-USA 2008. Other programs include:

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons on "Oil and Gas - The Next Meltdown?"

Financial consultant Jim Puplava on "Making Financial Sense of the Coming Energy Crisis"

Energy analyst Randy Udall on "Peak Oil and Its Effect on Climate Change"

"Two Views of a Post-Oil Future" with author James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency) and Post Carbon Institute Founder Julian Darley

"Shocks, Shortages, and Scenarios - Planning for a Post-Oil Future" with Megan Quinn Bachman of Community Solutions, and Bryn Davidson of Dynamic Cities Project.

"Broadening the Peak Oil Conversation" with senior energy analyst Robert Hirsch and Kyle Saunders, "Professor Goose" of The Oil Drum website.

Peak Moment: Community Responses for a Changing Energy Future is an online television series showcasing perspectives and initiatives for local self-reliant living. The half-hour programs feature host Janaia Donaldson's conversations and on-site tours with individuals and communities preparing for accelerating energy decline, climate chaos, and economic uncertainty. 137 programs are on the net at www.peakmoment.tv/conversations and are cablecast on about two dozen community access TV stations nationwide.

Peak Moment Television is produced by Robyn Mallgren and Janaia Donaldson, Yuba Gals Independent Media of Nevada City, California. Contact: janaia@peakmoment.tv. If you do not wish to receive these press releases, please contact me at above email address.

Know Your Shit...Manure and Antibiotics

ABOUT MANURE
By Al Brooks

In our embrace of organic farming, we used to shun chemical fertilizers, and rightly so. They do harm to soil microorganisms and produce bloated crops with less flavor and nutrition. But some new studies have uncovered problems with manure, our favorite fertilizer for organic crops, that now cause us to examine where a particular batch of manure comes from and what went into the livestock that produced it.

According to tests conducted at the University of Minnesota, many food crops absorb the antibiotics leaching into the soil from the manure of livestock fed these chemicals. Antibiotics are introduced into livestock feed in order to increase growth and prevent infections. We have long understood the environmental harm, done by the application of excess manure, to our waterways because of runoff. But the researchers at the University of Minnesota discovered that vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure.

Close to 70 percent of the total antibiotics and related drugs produced in the United States are fed to cattle, pigs and poultry, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. And about 90 percent of that is excreted in the urine and manure. According to an article in Rachel's weekly #993:

"The Minnesota researchers planted corn, green onion and cabbage in manure-treated soil in 2005 to evaluate the environmental impacts of feeding antibiotics to livestock. Six weeks later, the crops were analyzed and found to absorb chlortetracycline, a drug widely used to treat diseases in livestock. In another study in 2007, corn, lettuce and potato were planted in soil treated with liquid hog manure. They, too, accumulated concentrations of an antibiotic, named Sulfamethazine, also commonly used in livestock."

Heat (cooking and canning) and other processing can reduce the levels of some antibiotics in foods, but Sulfamethazine, for one is not affected by heat. Of greatest concern are those vegetables that are commonly eaten raw, like lettuce and cabbage, and those tubers that are in contact with the soil and may absorb greater quantities, like potatoes, carrots, and radishes.

Health officials fear that eating vegetables and meat laced with drugs meant to treat infections can promote resistant strains of bacteria in food and the environment. Past studies have shown overuse of antibiotics reduces their ability to cure infections. Over time, certain antibiotics are rendered ineffective. But scientists have evidence that there may be other serious consequences. Antibiotics also may have contributed to the explosive rise in asthma and allergies in children over the last 20 years. Again, quoting from Rachel's Weekly:

"Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, following 448 children from birth for seven years, reported that children who received antibiotics within their first six months had a higher risk of developing allergies and asthma."

"Such health concerns led the European Union (EU) in 2006 to ban antibiotic use as feed additives for promoting livestock growth. But in the United States, nearly 25 million pounds of antibiotics per year, up from 16 million in the mid 1980s, are given to healthy animals for agriculture purposes, according to a 2000 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists."

Composting of manure, since heat is generated by this process, can break down some of the antibiotics. But if a farmer or gardener wishes to be free of this contamination entirely, s/he must know the pedigree of the manure applied to the food crops. Until we put in place regulations similar to those in the EU, where antibiotics can be given only to sick animals, we must each, individually apply the precautionary principle and avoid using even "natural" fertilizers whose source is unknown.