All too often abatement procedures are done for the wrong reasons. Consider if you will the Malathion spraying, which has been done on fruit trees and avocados to kill the so-called Mediterranean fruit fly. You see, Japan threatened to boycott our produce if we did not spray and get rid of the Mediterranean fruit fly. Of course the Mediterranean fruit fly is not so easy to get rid of, as it changes generations every three days. So to get rid of it, one has to spray at alternating intervals over a two-week period. Therefore you need a lot of Malathion product to spray to insure you can kill all the bugs. And of course we need to make a huge spectacle out of it in our newspapers and on TV so that it will reach the national news level and be seen all over the world on CNN and therefore the Japanese will believe that we're doing something about the Mediterranean fruit fly. However, often the spraying that is done, we find that everything is very political and certain areas are sprayed and other areas are not. Certain fruit trees can be harvested, while others are not and under quarantine. Later we find out that a politician or a very influential person who has donated large political dollars to a local politician seems to be just outside of the spray zone. What does this mean? It means if you are outside of the spray zone and quarantine area you can sell your products, but the others cannot. This means you get more money with less competition in the marketplace and that my friends puts small time farmers out of business and it really pisses me off. Consider this in 2006. |
