[CVF] Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter

[sal]

Organic growers need chemical and GMO trespass law or their will be no
organic.  for getaboutit. before we sign on to any USDA or state organic bs
we need a chemical and GMO trespass law.  people want organic food and we
have the right to be able to give it to them.

without a chemical and GMO trespass law there is no organic,  and I don't
mean 1 percent I me no chemical or GMO trespass.  we have to make the
contaminators responsible for their contamination.




check out an organic farmers homepage
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
sals at rain.,org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson" <lakinroe at silcom.com>
To: <scpg at arashi.com>; <sdpg at arashi.com>; <ccpg at arashi.com>
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2000 5:45 AM
Subject: [CVF] Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter


> Hi Everyone
> This article on the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter is written by an Organic
> Farmer Shepard  Bliss in Sonoma County to be submitted to local newspapers
> in  Sonoma , it was posted on the California Vineyard Forum which is
> sponsored by the Sierra Club. Read and get a more informed look at it's
> impacts and causes and how organic farmers will be harmed by the spraying.
> Wes
>
> Written by Shepherd Bliss owns Kokopelli Farm, outside Sebastopol, which
> specializes
> in organic berries, apples, eggs, and educational farm tours.
> Sender: Vineyard Forum <CALIF-VINEYARD-FORUM at LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG>
>
>
> The following article on the sharpshooter has been submitted to various
> local publications.  Since I will continue writing on this matter, I would
> welcome your comments on the approach I am taking.  Should you see it in
> print, I would welcome letters to the editor in response, since the
> advocates of pesticide spraying are likely to write.
>
> We will also have a meeting next Sunday to consider what direct actions to
> take if spraying does occur locally, which is very likely.  Please contact
> me for more information on that meeting.
> Shepherd
>
> The Sharpshooter Insect Is Not My Enemy
>
> By Shepherd Bliss, Kokopelli Farm
>
> "The chickens are coming home to roost," my Uncle Dale would observe on
our
> family farm in Iowa.  Now another winged one--the tiny glassy-winged
> sharpshooter--is arriving for the bountiful monocrop meal set by the eager
> wine industry.
>
> A campaign of hatred--driven by fear and maximizing profit--is being waged
> against this small insect.  But is our hungry guest really an "enemy," as
> wine propagandists contend?    Or is it nature's remedy for an unbalanced
> monoculture?  Is nature merely taking its course, as humans seek to
control
> it?
>
> The local daily newspaper presents the wine industry's one-sided view of
the
> sharpshooter as enemy.  It is time to consider how it might help us
examine
> a voracious wine industry that consumes forests, orchards, and land.
>
> Scientists warned the speculating wine industry that nature would balance
a
> monoculture.  "One of the consequences of the trend toward expansion of
> large-scale monocultures is the loss of habitats for natural enemies,
which
> results in increased pest problems," write three University of California
> scientists, headed by Dr. Clara Nicholls, in a 1997 article entitled
"Plant
> Biodiversity and Pest Management in a Northern California Vineyard."
>
> But does the wine industry listen?  No.  They continue cutting down
forests
> and apple orchards to plant non-native vineyards.  They venture into
> riparian areas around rivers, which sharpshooters love.  Along with poison
> oak, sharpshooters may be considered "forest guardians," protecting what
> remains from further human degradation.  They carry a "Keep Out" sign.
The
> wine industry has gone too far and needs to be reigned in.
>
> I hate to say "we told you so."  But we did.  In l997 and l998 I published
> articles in the Press Democrat, the Sonoma County Independent and
elsewhere,
> as did others, warning the expanding wine industry of the monoculture risk
> they were taking.  Nature abhors a monoculture.
>
> A decade ago wine grapes accounted for only 20% of Sonoma County's
> agricultural revenues.  They are already over 50% and head toward Napa
> County's 90%.   We warned against putting all our eggs in one basket.
> Sonoma's agricultural economy depends too much on wine's boom and bust
> cycle.
>
> The luxury wine industry, full of pride, works to transform the image of
> this area from the natural Redwood Empire to the profitable Wine Country.
> To defend that image it demonizes tiny insects to prepare the public for
the
> spraying of toxic pesticides.  The sharpshooter probably will arrive here
> soon, and then be fired upon.
>
> Organic farmers and others will defend their private property, even at the
> risk of being jailed.  What will this do to the wine industry's public
> image?    Stories on "Organic Farmers Defend Land from Spraying" in
> newspapers around the U.S. and the world could hurt the North Coast wine
> industry more than the sharpshooter.
>
> I have spent eight years of hard labor (others have spent more) to build
an
> organic farm.  A few mintues of spraying the highly toxic Sevin in search
of
> sharpshooters (which is what authorities plan) would destroy my organic
> farm.  I will not stand idly by and watch my livelihood be ruined.
>
> The sharpshooter may be a gift horse in disguise, repeating the message to
> the hard-of-hearing wine industry,  "Back off.  Stand down."  Sonoma
> County's rapidly expanding wine industry is already running off food
farmers
> unable to pay the big bucks for land.
>
> Pierce's Disease--which some grassy-winged sharpshooters (GWSS) might
> transmit, especially to stressed vines--is not new.  It has been here for
> over a century.  The wine industry should have crop insurance that will
> cover their losses and should not use the nearly $40 million in tax
dollars
> commited by federal and state agencies to bail them out.
>
> If it were not the GWSS, nature would send another balancing remedy.  The
> ravenous farming practices of wine over-planters created the problem,
> setting such an abundant table, not the innocent sharpshooter.  The GWSS
is
> not my enemy.  It is a symptom of a deeper problem.
>
> People's fears are being  manipulated for the economic benefit of the wine
> industry.  The sharpshooter is described as a "new, dangerous bug," "the
> plague," "vicious pest" and "voracious insect."  I have seen this tiny
> insect; it merely looks like another leafhopper, similar to the ones that
> damage my berries.
> A simplistic good guy/bad guy dualism has been propagated.  The
sharpshooter
> is called as "the biggest threat ever to California agriculture."  This
sets
> the stage for the fight of the century--the noble wine indusry and its
> governmental allies against the big, bad sharpshooter.
>
> "If you took insects away now, everything would collapse," notes Montana
> State University entomologist Kevin O'Neill.  Organic farms depend upon
> beneficial insects, such as pollinating bees.  I plant insectaries--plants
> that draw lady bugs, dragonflies, spiders, and other beneficials.  I also
> like insects like butterflies and depend upon worm boxes.
>
> My berry vines will survive the leafhopper attacks, as will those of
> sustainable grapegrowers.  After the sharpshooter eats, we will have a
> pruned and more manageable, moderate wine industry.  A sustainable wine
> industry will be rebuilt by the many good local vineyardists, even if the
> sharpshooter harms some vines.
>
> If an "agricultural emergency" is declared and mandatory ground spraying
> occurs here--as in Sacramento and elsewhere--authorities could come on my
> private property and spray without my permission.  Writer Will Shonbrun
> describes this as  "home invasion."   Spraying would hurt the
many--animals,
> people, plants--to benefit a few at the top of the wine industry.
>
> Spraying would sacrifice an industry--organic farming, which grows healthy
> food--at the wine god's altar.  Sonoma County has the second highest
number
> of organic farmers in California.  That could soon end, leaving the local
> economy even more vulnerable to nature's next balancing agent.
>
> So-called "pests" adapt to pesticides.   Only natural and preventive means
> should be used to contain the sharpshooter.  Spraying may spread the
> sharpshooter, as it leaves contaminated plants, seeking food and shelter
> elsewhere.
>
> The wine industry has too much power in Washington, Sacramento, and Santa
> Rosa.  If it were another industry, spraying would be dismissed as a
> hazardous non-solution with multiple negative unintended consequences.
The
> risks of spraying in terms of public relations, organic agriculture,
health,
> politics, and the environment will turn out to be far greater than any
> economic benefit.
>
> Perhaps the real solution to the alleged sharpshooter problem is to deal
> with the cause of their arrival and declare a moratorium on planting new
> vineyards in Sonoma County?   Houses do not belong in flood plains, and
> vineyards do not belong close to the forested and riparian habitats of
> sharpshooters.
>
> (Shepherd Bliss owns Kokopelli Farm, outside Sebastopol, which specializes
> in organic berries, apples, eggs, and educational farm tours.)
>
>
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