Meat, Two Veg ...and 37 chemicals

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Monday, 18 November 2002

Most cabbage has been sprayed with 37 chemicals... so grow your own, says Monty Don in his Observer column. He goes on......

"About a year ago, I was trying to be evangelical about organic gardening to a friend who was no gardener. 'What I want to know,' he said, 'is whether it is safer to grow food in my garden. I haven't a clue what gets put on supermarket fruit and veg. I hate gardening, but if it was safer I would grow some veg.'

This conversation came back to me when I read Michael Pollan's new book, The Botany of Desire (£15.99, Bloomsbury). In it he visits a potato grower. This grower operates on a vast scale, growing his spuds in huge circles, each more than 100 acres big. These circles are sprayed by computer-controlled systems with the full arsenal of fungicides, pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. The aim is to 'clean' the fields of any form of life other than the potato plants. The list of chemicals is too long to reproduce, but the most toxic of all is an organophosphate called Monitor, which is so lethal that the farmer says: 'I won't go into a field for four or five days after it has been sprayed, not even to fix a broken pivot.' Why use this spray?

Because, dear reader, it stops possible brown blemishes on French fries. The farmer goes on: 'I'm not sure that I should be saying this, but I always plant a small area of potatoes without any chemicals. Any potatoes I pulled today are probably still full of systemics. I don't eat them.' "

Source: The Observer 17 Nov 02. For full story visit www.guardian.co.uk go to Observer and search Monty Don