The long shelf life of pesticides in the ground

And some people wonder why sales of organic produce and food are skyrocketing?

It's called awareness folks - and you can count me as one among many who only recently really began to understand the potential harmful affects of the extensive use of pesticides on our food supply within the US the past century.

The Washington Post reported on Friday, February 17th that "Development of former farmland can disturb pesticides spread nearly a century ago and contaminate nearby water sources, according to a study by researchers at Dartmouth College."

It went on to state, "The problem is that pesticides spread during the early 1900s contained both arsenic and lead, which researchers have found remain in the top 10 inches of soil. The study results appear in the January-February issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.

But the study, which focused on two New Hampshire apple orchards where the pesticide lead arsenate once was used, found that over time these toxic metal change form and become part of the silt and organic matter in the soil."

YIKES!!!

Think about how much farmland has been converted into housing developments the past 20 years...10 years...heck, one year! In my last post at Comcast working in the California Bay Area, I had to drive to the Central Valley (Fresno) on a monthly basis (not what I would call a perk of the job). What amazed me was the speed of development in the Valley and seeing the farmland rapidly becoming housing projects.

Given that this is an area that considers itself to be the "Breadbasket to the world" - the implications causes me to shudder for those families snapping up those houses.

And what about the farmland that *hasn't* been plowed over yet and is still being used to produce food....with arsenic and lead in the top 10 inches of soil?

May I have an *ORGANIC* apple please???

- David Kaufer, President & Chief Green Officer, Green for Good

Technorati Tags: washington post, Pesticides, Organic Food