Rancher/farmer here, from the Salinas Valley surrounds.<p>There are some factual errors in the article, like this gem:
"The deadly bug first appeared in hamburger meat in the early 1980s"<p>E. coli has been around approximately forever, so I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they wrote that. See: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli</a><p>However, they do make some valid points. One of them is the bit about wildlife being killed off in pursuit of food safety. The Salinas Valley is essentially a dead zone for birds at this point, as they're seen as a disease vector for food. This is a far cry from the direction agriculture had been taking prior to the spinach scare, which was towards organic and sustainable agriculture.<p>Secondly, they do mention the feral pig vector (just Google for "feral pig e coli"). California has some fairly ridiculous ideas about feral pigs, among them being the requirement that people purchase a pig tag to kill them ($19.70 each, plus $41.20 for the hunting license). This is absurd, given that they're one of the most destructive invasive species in existence. If they really are a vector for the spread of E. coli (which is easy to imagine... there are millions of feral pigs in California, and especially around the Salinas Valley), there should be a bounty on them, not a fee. There are depredation permits available, but they're not in widespread enough use to make a dent (and I know farmers who have killed hundreds of pigs in a year, on a single plot, with a depredation permit and one rifle).<p>And, yes, I realize the two above paragraphs may sound contradictory. There's a difference between trying to enable sustainable agriculture and letting invasive species spread unchecked. As it stands, California is getting the worst of both worlds.