Right Theory, Wrong Poison

When the tainted pet food story broke last week, I opined that it sounded like the food was poisoned rather than infested with bacteria. I thought it might be anti-freeze. Don't know why I was obsessing on that, but it turns out the culprit was rat poison. They suspect the poison might be in wheat gluten purchased from China. That's really no surprise. China has one of the worst food safety records in the world. Many of China’s food safety problems can be traced back to the farm level. Farmers rely on heavy use of chemicals to coax production out of intensively cultivated soils and deal with pests. China has one of the world’s highest rates of chemical fertilizer use per acre, and Chinese farmers use many highly toxic pesticides, including some that are banned in the United States, such as aminopterin, the poison found in the pet food. Also, farm chemicals are sometimes mislabeled. And, let's not forget the role communism plays. China's farming sector is composed of 200 million farm households who typically have 1-2 acres of land. Farmers have only usage rights to their land, so they lack ownership incentives to make costly investments. I'd be leery of ANY food that comes from China, not just pet food ingredients.