Clean Your Apples Pt 2
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. Activist groups love to go after agriculture, whether it’s the “Dirty Dozen” pesticide residue list or some other baseless accusation.That’s why, U.S. Apple Association president Jim Bair says answering the attacks is necessary …
BAIR … “We actually responded to NBC TV nationally had sent out a story about the ‘Dirty Dozen’ report as it came out last Spring and they just parroted exactly what the Environmental Working Group had said.”
So, Bair says they responded to NBC within a few hours and said, look this is nonsense …
BAIR … “There’s far more danger of people having health problems associated with not eating fresh fruits and vegetables and frankly, if you looked at the government residue studies a child would have to eat 170 apples a day, repeat that, 170 apples a day to just to bump up against the EPA tolerances for pesticide residues.”
Bair says we’d all be better off if we just listened to our mothers …
BAIR … “Mom was always right and she was certainly right when she said ‘eat your fruits and vegetables’ and so we pushed back hard on that and, to our pleasant surprise, NBC News nationally sent out an updated story so in dozens of cities all over America, the next day NBC local TV stations did a correction and told our side of the story.”
Bair says there’s only so many hours in the day and so many crackpots, so they’ve got to pick their battles and do it in a way they’ll get the most leverage.