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If they are selling the produce, they are a "commercial farm".
Commercial as in using standard corporate industry practices, as compared to organic practices. Not commercial as in a business selling a product.
“Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe… What we believe determines what we take to be true.” -David Bohm
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”
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"It's not possible to compare the presence or absence of rat lungworm from commercially grown produce in those areas to the organic produce grown in the same area."
It is certainly possible to compare the likelihood of rat lungworm on a farm by its environment and practices.
The two vectors are rats and snails. Commercial farms are generally neat, orderly places, with herbicide sprayed both in the fields and around their edges. Crops are typically set in rows bereft of mulch. Often there are no adjacent plantings.
Organic farms often use mulch, and may raise a variety of crops in a diverse environment (polyculture). Organic farms are more hospitable to rodents and snails. Both animals prefer vegetative cover to open ground.
Why deny the differences between commercial and organic farms in their susceptibility to rat lungworm?
Again, conscientious organic farmers can mitigate against rat lungworm, but their job is harder than that of the commercial farmer.
A consumer who is worried about rat lungworm might choose commercial over organic, just to be safe. It is an unfortunate thing--organic farming is otherwise a great endeavor--but one cannot blame people for being paranoid about catching a severe illness.
In the natural world, reality is NOT what we think might be true or what we hope to be true. Reality is demonstrated science.)
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It is certainly possible to compare the likelihood of rat lungworm on a farm by its environment and practices.
I spoke with a large commercial / conventional lettuce grower from Waimea a few weeks ago (see page 5 of this thread). He said they often had slugs and snails in their presumably weed free, mulch free fields, and when they did they applied bait/granules. He said they did not have a concern about rat lungworm despite the presence of slugs, because the disease is not an issue in their area.
The possibility of rat lungworm on that commercial / conventionally grown lettuce farm would be quite real if the rat lungworm parasite were ever detected there. Do you have a similar example directly from a farm (or other than a website of questionable objectivity) which proves your assertion that slugs definitively exist only at organic farms and not commercial/ conventional farms? I provided a real world reality based observation that slugs can be found at both types of farms. Would you be able to offer more than the hypothetical - - there's mulch, therefore there might be rats, therefore possibly rat lungworm?
edited to clarify the end of a sentence
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”
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"...your assertion that slugs definitively exist only at organic farms and not commercial/ conventional farms?"
I never made the statement that slugs exist "only" at organic farms, nor did I say anything remotely close to that.
All pau.
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Video being shared on Facebook about this today, featuring a UH Manoa professor. He downplays the danger of the slime trail, saying that worms found in these are in such small numbers that they're insufficient to cause problems. The greatest danger is ingesting a juvenile slug, since they're quite small (1/4 in) and translucent. Just plain ole tap water is just as effective as anything else to dislodge them from produce, something I've heard before. Of course, it's the leafy greens that they're most likely to be hidden away in.
He mentions three ways to eradicate them, slug bait, beer saucers (they love beer, climb in and drown) and by hand picking them up at night and "killing them yourself".
The demonstration showed a gloved hand, but didn't suggest a way of killing them. As someone previously mentioned, a bucket of brine water is better than squashing them on the ground, which will release the parasites to be possibly picked up by something else.
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quote:
Originally posted by Durian Fiend
Video being shared on Facebook about this today, featuring a UH Manoa professor. He downplays the danger of the slime trail, saying that worms found in these are in such small numbers that they're insufficient to cause problems. The greatest danger is ingesting a juvenile slug, since they're quite small (1/4 in) and translucent. Just plain ole tap water is just as effective as anything else to dislodge them from produce, something I've heard before. Of course, it's the leafy greens that they're most likely to be hidden away in.
He mentions three ways to eradicate them, slug bait, beer saucers (they love beer, climb in and drown) and by hand picking them up at night and "killing them yourself".
The demonstration showed a gloved hand, but didn't suggest a way of killing them. As someone previously mentioned, a bucket of brine water is better than squashing them on the ground, which will release the parasites to be possibly picked up by something else.
can you post a link to the video, please?
Aloha 
Aloha
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quote:
Originally posted by glassnumbers
[
can you post a link to the video, please?
Aloha
I couldn't find a non Facebook link, but here it is.
https://www.facebook.com/civilbeat/video...718755151/
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DOH reports new cases of RLW in Hawaii. Live stream news conference at 2:30 today, KHON.
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The 6 new cases were caused by drinking Kava that was left outside uncovered and a slug crawled in and died.
Pretty easy to prevent that .
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