February 27, 2002

For Immediate Release:

Contact: Jackie Christensen – 612-870-3424 or 612-387-3424 (cell)

Or Ben Lilliston, 612-870-3416

(St. Paul -- February 27, 2002) As the Twin Minneapolis Home & Garden Show opens this week, a local sustainable agriculture organization is calling on fertilizer makers to disclose all of the ingredients in their products. The group also urged Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson to require such disclosure. Washington State requires fertilizer makers to submit analyses of their products when the compounds are registered. A web site and database are available for consumers to learn the levels of nine heavy metals that may be contained in those products.

"The Home & Garden Show really gets starts gardeners thinking about getting their fingers dirty, and our warm winter has farmers already contemplating this spring's planting," said Jackie Hunt Christensen, co-Director of the Food and Health Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "However, most gardeners and food producers aren't aware that some of the fertilizer products they will use can contain potentially harmful pollutants."

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy is hosting investigative reporter and author Duff Wilson and farmer Nancy Witte to call attention to the practice of "recycling" hazardous industrial waste into agricultural fertilizers and animal feeds. Wilson has written a book, Fateful Harvest: The True Story of A Small Town, a Global Industry and a Toxic Secret, about the plight of Quincy, Washington farmers. A group of farmers there alleged that the local Cenex cooperative mixed hazardous wastes into the fertilizer they'd applied to their fields, causing crop failure and health problems. Witte's brother, Tom, was one of those farmers.

"Cenex is ignoring a basic right of their farmer-members to know what is in the products they are applying to their fields," continued Christensen. "Today we are urging Cenex and all fertilizer makers to voluntarily disclose all of the ingredients in their products, not just the ones that are good for crops."

Fertilizer products become contaminated when manufacturers buy toxic waste from industrial facilities to obtain low-cost plant nutrients, such as zinc or iron. Such industrial wastes are often highly contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium chromium, lead and mercury; and dioxins. These substances are known or suspected to cause cancer, reproductive harm, neurological damage, and a variety of other dangerous health effects, including kidney and liver damage, skin irritation, and gastrointestinal ailments.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy promotes resilient family farms, rural communities and ecosystems around the world through research and education, science and technology, and advocacy.

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The Washington State fertilizer information can be found at http://www.wa.gov/agr/pmd/fertilizers/metals.htm

Arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, molybdenum, [add the usual closing paragraph about IATP] selenium and zinc levels are shown in this database.