Since the beginning, bugs, diseases, bacterial infections, viruses, etc. have appeared in all corners of the world and nobody knew where they came from. In biblical times, clouds of . . .
locusts came out of nowhere and destroyed crops leaving entire nations to starve.
When the first Europeans arrived in North America six centuries ago, they brought with them diseases that native people had no immunity to and thousands died. Through the ages, various plagues have appeared in different countries and killed hundreds of thousands. During the early 1950s Polio crippled and even killed many of our neighbours.
Farms are invaded with army worms and grasshoppers occasionally. Every couple years, thousands of June bugs appear from nowhere and cover your front door and all the outside lights. This year we are warned that killer hornets, an interesting little green and yellow caterpillar, a red beetle with black dots and a long snout and a few other new bugs are on their way to our country.
Forty years ago, the USDA imported a little Asian beetle to eat the eggs of some fly that was destroying vegetable crops in California. It looks like a harmless ladybug but has more spots and is more orange than red. These Asian beetles have no enemy, smell bad if you squeeze them and have taken over.
So, how did these bugs get here? Well, most of them don’t swim and only a very few can move very far carried by the wind. Most bugs, diseases and viruses are brought by man.
A few years ago, just as we were packing up to leave a conference in a five star hotel in one of Canada’s favourite tourist destinations, we noticed a bedbug. Although we didn’t see any others, we reported and delivered it to the checkout desk. The desk clerk didn’t seem alarmed, so I assumed that this wasn’t the first time. We never stayed in that hotel again and when we got home we put our travel bag with all our clothes in safe storage in the freezer for a few months until we got more instruction as to how to wash and disinfect them.
It’s been almost two decades since mad cow disease devastated our cattle industry. A friend of mine still has a cheque for the amount of 37 cents stapled to his wall so he will never forget how much he received for a full grown cow during the mad cow scare. The cause of mad cow has been blamed on feeding a protein supplement that was imported from England.
So, how do we stop this infiltration of bugs? Everything that is imported, food, clothing, farm equipment, etc. has to be cleared by Health Canada and Agriculture Canada before entry. Some foods and packages are irradiated before entry but that still makes me nervous that something I eat has been bombarded with radiation.
I still believe that all fruits and vegetables should be washed thoroughly and preferably cooked at a high heat before eating. Some fruits and vegetables are handpicked, but most now are machine picked and I wonder if many of the bugs or egg masses are removed by the machine?
Many bugs can be heavily reduced by creating an environment that they don’t like. On the farm, we have noticed that many bugs or flies choose to lay their eggs on or near sick or distressed plants. These plants give off a different electronic signal than healthy plants do. By maintaining a healthy soil we can reduce or even eliminate army worm, corn root worm, white grubs-June bugs, rose chafers, etc.
Another tool that has been developed throughout the world is vaccination. In many parts of the world, people are resistant to different diseases that we are not. Maybe it is by natural evolution that those not resistant just died off and didn’t reproduce.
The North American bison has developed through the ages to withstand snow, freezing temperature, survival for long periods without water, etc. but when mad cow arrived in North America, it threatened the bison with extinction because they had never been exposed before.
When people plan to visit some warm, sunny vacation spot, they get vaccinated for Hep-B, etc. before they go, even though the native people there are immune to those diseases. When I attended school I received numerous mandatory vaccinations.
When calves are born on our farm they receive various vaccinations to help keep them healthy. Sometimes, depending on the disease or ailment, we isolate animals until they or the farm is declared safe.
When an animal is shipped to the sale barn, care is taken not to track anything from the transport truck or the sale barn where animals from hundreds of farms are gathered. In all cases, common sense is very important.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
