chemicals

Article in Orion about immigrant communities affected by pesticide drift in California: the benefits of organic aren't meant only for elite eaters, but for farm workers and farm neighbors. (From my friend Steve.)

And in the NYT yesterday, an editorial piece about the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by fertilizer runoff from big farms in the US, all feeding into the Mississippi.
There is no better symbol of the paradox of American agriculture — the very richness applied to the fields is the source of ecological death hundreds of miles away.

Now we're calling petroleum-based fertilizer, the cause of the dead zone, "richness"?