> In September 2006, spinach contaminated 
> with a virulent strain of bacteria, E. coli O157:H7, 
> killed three people and sickened hundreds of others.

And how do you suppose this E.coli got on the greens?

I am not an expert, but back in the 1970s, (the LAST time we saved the
world) one of the things we did was push to use composting toilets such as
the Clivus Multrum in connection with food-growing attached greenhouses that
would both collect heat for home heating, and feed the occupants.  My
participation was limited to designing and building my 15KW windmill for
electrical generation (that used hydraulic fluid and spun the heavy
generator on the ground with a tiny little hydraulic pump up at the top of a
suddenly much lighter and cheaper tower.  Thanks to "Aunt" Mariam Hartzell
of Troy Ohio, owner of Hartzell Propeller, for telling "the boys at the
plant" to help me make some "windspinner props".)

Anyway, as a result, I know a bit about that specific strain of E.coli,
human waste, animal waste, and their possible impact on crops in the event
of a less-than complete composting cycle. Aside from a cow somehow wandering
into the field and pooping on the crop, the most plausible explanation is
poor facilities for farmworkers, one of them sick, but still working in the
field, perhaps sick enough to suffer from diarrhea, yet not provided with
any sort of sanitary facilities, such as a port-a-potty and up.  What is
needed to prevent the specific problem cited is not "buffers", but better
working conditions for farmworkers, including field-side port-a-potties and
some medical care when they are sick.

But the entire concept of "conservation buffers" at the edges of fields was
a bogus bit of window dressing from the start.  I forget the name of the
person who tried unsuccessfully over and over again to get this bit of
non-science nonsense into USDA's book of practices, and eventually was able
to make it seem "green" to do so from a post at one of the "environmental"
NGOs.  Kim Flottum will remember this fellow's name.  Kim?

Anyway, the idea was nothing but a tax break for corporate farms who
promptly classified all the land that could not be farmed as "conservation
set-asides", as if pollinators or anything else could make a living in the
isolated patches of weeds in the midst of mile after mile of row crops,
pesticides, herbicides, and water management where not a drop was wasted and
left on the surface.

Much larger buffer areas are needed for this idea to work, or the set-asides
get all the drift and fallout of "agriculture", thereby support noting
sustainable.

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