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Comment by notavegan | Hacker News Reader

There would be no outbreak if farmers didn't use animal manure to fertilize their vegetable crops. That's the real source of salmonella.

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What alternative do you propose? Petrochemical products are no sustainable alternative.

The real source of salmonella in the U.S. is the lack of a strategy to eradicate it. Many countries have, where you can eat raw eggs any day without problem. Once a chicken farm gets an outbreak, you burn it down, that's it.

Sounds drastic? Well, then that's the choice you make and will have to live with salmonella.

Well, you don’t burn it down, but it’s bad news for the chickens, certainly. And the practical approach is normally keeping bacterial load low via vaccination, hygiene, culling etc., rather than total eradication.

I live in one of the ‘raw eggs are basically safe now’ countries; a government study in Ireland involving testing 5000 eggs about 10 years ago found no salmonella in egg contents, but did find it on two shells. I still don’t trust raw or undercooked eggs, though; I was at an impressionable age when the last major outbreak happened in the early 90s.

Or if farmers cared about animal welfare and improved the conditions for them instead of creating this situation where animals and products have to be constantly medicated or washed to make them fit for consumption.

You know, maybe money isn't the singular most important thing? As much as the US believes it is.

As a layman, it would seem more desirable to use pasteurized manure than petrochemical based fertilizers.

As long as the animals are making the poop it makes sense to use it. Has organic fertilizer usage had an impact on the bottom line for the companies making the poop?

Is this based on anything other than an gut distrust of "chemicals"? I am, admittedly, a layman as well, but my understanding is that fertilizers are essentially distillations of the important elements (Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphate) which you would get from manure, but without the risk of food poisoning.

There are other minerals in manure. Basic multivitamins and active bacteria besides salmonella benefit the soil.

It's a good way to dispose of the manure. It's beneficial to the soil and pretty much any other disposal will cost more than spreading it on fields.

Chemical fertilizer is used because it increases yields well beyond crop rotation (and because minerals are depleted over time).

As long as we have cattle we will have manure anyway. Might as well use it beneficially, also because disposing of the rest is already hard enough.

Do you know for sure? My father was in the ag business in the Salinas valley and he always suggested it was either wild pigs shitting in the fields or migrant workers not given proper or enough "porta potties" so they go in the ditches sometimes.

I'd be really interested in information sources of salmonella; I understand a lot of fertilizer is cooked to kill pathogens, and that salmonella also comes from rat feces in warehouses. If you have any sources on this, please post them.

What alternative do you suggest?

There would also be no outbreak if farmers immunized their animals against salmonella.

See https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23165-us-should-vacci... for more.

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