Let’s get down and dirty on the farms
I have to admit to something – a small secret. I spent nearly twenty years of my life living surrounded by dairy herds. I lived out in the countryside with the milking sheds in plain sight and the gentle beasts grazing happily all around. It is, by any standards, a peaceful life which I now miss in this urban setting. Except, there’s one thing I don’t miss. There were no main drains or sewers in our area so everyone collected their waste in tanks. The grateful farmers would come round on a regular basis, collect the contents of the tank and then spray it on the fields. Those were the days we went shopping in the nearby town. But this was “proper” farming back them – a practice going back centuries. Today, it’s called organic farming but the principles are the same. Except there’s a growing problem. Actually, the problem is not with the “growing”. Produce and the grass eaten by cattle, sheep, etc., do very well. It’s that some of the cattle are getting a little too gentle in some parts of the world. In Georgia, the state monitors the quality of the milk and the labs have made an interesting discovery. The milk is laced with valium. Alerted to this, other US states and those in Canada have begun testing, and the levels in milk are surprisingly high. The stresses of modern living have been driving the growth in the consumption of antidepressants and other drugs for controlling anxiety. Valium has been on the market the longest time. Humans have been popping the tablets and recycling the “waste products” back into the environment for decades. This means the drugs are now in the rivers and the underground water used for irrigation. They are also sprayed directly on to field as fertilizer. Valium has the highest concentration. When the cows contentedly ruminate on the problem, it enters their milk and then reappears on our tables. Well, apart from taking a valium to stop worrying about the problem (or should that be, simply drinking more milk), there’s almost nothing that can be done about it. The whole system we city dwellers have built for dealing with human waste depends on processing and then releasing the “safe” outflow and sludge into the environment again. None of us want to see our taxes rise to redesign or replace our sewage plants. So, all I can ask is that we all use fewer pills. I like my milk and prefer it free from valium. And the same goes for the yoghurt, butter, cheese and anything else made from the milk of animals. And don’t forget to wash fresh produce thoroughly before using it!