FERN’s Friday Feed: Sludge report
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Can Maine lead the way to a future without ‘forever chemicals’?
FERN and Mother Jones
“PFAS, which reliably repel water, grease, and heat, are used in everything from paper plates to rain jackets. The compounds,” writes Bridget Huber, “which don’t break down in the environment, have ended up almost everywhere, including in living creatures. Decades of studies suggest links between some PFAS and increased risks of cancer, high cholesterol, immune system and reproductive problems, as well as fetal complications. The EPA has proposed a ban in food packaging and this week announced limits for six types of PFAS in drinking water. But the federal government has been silent on allowable levels in sewage sludge spread on farms or in the food they produce, nor does it have a strategy to phase out the entire class of some 12,000 compounds. Maine could finally force Washington to take action.”
Singapore’s scofflaw foragers
Eater
“Foraging in some parts of Singapore is illegal, and perpetrators are subject to fines and jail time. While only a small portion of the 283-square-mile territory is technically protected and penalties are rarely enforced, the law represents a broader cultural prohibition on foraging that essentially applies to all public spaces. Even when foragers are safe from legal consequences, rampant social stigma and nosy neighbors are enough to keep people away from the bounty growing around the metropolis. In a generation, Singapore transfigured from a nation of agriculture into a hypermodernized economic powerhouse,” writes Jackson Kao, “doing its best to clear any memory of humble subsistence farming along the way. But a dedicated minority of intrepid foragers maintain the practices that predate the modern country, gathering wild fruits in the shadows of skyscrapers, prying oysters from rocky shores, and hunting for gems among mangrove swamp.”
Cows are suffering even on the most ‘humane’ dairy farms
The Atlantic
“Alexandre is not just any farm; it is esteemed by chefs, politicians, and advocates for humane agriculture, and consumers seek out its products,” writes Annie Lowrey. “The report implicates not just the farm but also the certification programs that farms like it use to assure consumers that the food they are eating is ethically sourced and cruelty-free. And it implicates the government, which does little to protect the welfare of farm animals. Laws are lax and enforcement is even more lax, despite widespread public support for animal protection. When I met Cow 13039, a dying animal sold to the highest bidder, I thought that the system had failed her. But in reporting this story, I found something far more disconcerting. No system had failed her, because there was no system to protect her in the first place.”
The English farmers who harvest rhubarb by candlelight
Smithsonian Magazine
“Yorkshire, England, is one of the few places in the world where rhubarb is harvested the old-fashioned way: by candlelight. Every November,” writes Corey Buhay, “after the first long frost, farmers transplant their crop into windowless heated sheds, plunging thousands of plants into total darkness. The stress triggers alarmingly rapid growth. Under the right conditions, rhubarb can grow more than an inch per day. That’s fast enough to hear it. Farmers have relied on this recipe of frost, darkness and warmth for more than 200 years. The combo tricks this bright-pink vegetable into growing sweeter, more tender stalks—a product called ‘forced rhubarb.’”
More than a year after typhoon, Alaska’s subsistence food harvest struggles
High Country News
“[I]n September 2022, the most dramatic storm in Alaska’s living memory slammed into the state’s Bering Sea coast. Small, predominantly Indigenous communities bore the brunt of Typhoon Merbok, which gathered momentum in the Pacific Ocean before it moved northeast into the Bering Sea,” writes Emily Schwing. “The region is still recovering today. Homes were flooded, ripped from their foundations and destroyed. Fish camps were ruined. Many people lost their boats and the gear they need to harvest their main sources of food: fish, seal and moose. And crowberries and other subsistence foods were lost, too. In a part of the U.S. where the subsistence lifestyle is essential for survival, Typhoon Merbok’s impact was devastating.”