Tabouleh Salad (photo by Digiology, courtesy of morguefile.com)

When it comes to growing the safest possible food veganic farmers are tough to beat, according to a report in the Associated Press.

Like organic farmers they shun the use of “synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified ingredients.” But veganic farmers take further steps to ensure the safety of the food they produce. They do not use pesticides approved for organic farming, and most importantly, they won’t use animal fertilizers either.

As the AP article explains,

Salmonella and e-coli are bacteria that live in the intestines of livestock and are present in their waste. Livestock waste, or manure, can be used to fertilize fields, potentially contaminating crops with the disease-causing bacteria.

Crops can also be contaminated by contact with infected animals or their byproducts, including bone meal and blood meal, which are used as fertilizer as well.

Veganic farmers use crop rotations and composted plant matter — or "green manure" — to fertilize their crops.

Organic and veganic family farmers have blazed an impressive trail for a healthier, more sustainable food system, employing methods that produce food that is more nutritious and safer for American families. The standards they have set deserve to be universally adopted, with the dangerous methods of massive factory farms tossed into the “dustbin of history.”

As George Bernard Shaw put it, “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

If you’d like to read the Associated Press article cited above go to: Veganic farmers work without animal fertilizers