The Metrics assume that isolating cropland from wildlife and wild areas
will make food safer. They call for farmers to dismantle conservation
buffers, remove trees in riparian zones and windbreaks, fill ponds, drain
wetlands, fence fields, install trapping and poisoned bait stations, and
scrape their field margins bare of vegetation.

Handlers of more than 99 percent of the nation's commercially grown leafy
greens have signed on to WGA's marketing agreement. Eager to show how
serious they are about reducing risk, some handlers have devised their own
"Super Metrics," which mandate even higher fences, bare earth buffers of
several hundred feet, and more extreme efforts to eliminate nearby natural
habitat.


Thanks Randy,  I did not know that at all.


The question I ask myself is what was there before?  And in most areas that
margins are short,  than answer is nothing. For example this least 4 days I
spent in Kansas and Oklahoma Very wild country,  not mowed, smaller portions
tilled,  almost what some would say  a paradise for pollinators.  Miles and
miles...  and no bees..  why?   Because the native forage and dry summer
climate is no habitat.  And little to no trees for nesting.  So despite all
that "natural habitat" year round its not suitable.   That is what I see in
a lot of areas.  Small pockets some over farmed.  But as a whole,  not a big
problem.   
That's the Midwest and  and east coast.  West coast is not my area!    



Charlie

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