Apples to Alcohol

I’m eating Gravenstein apples as I write. Yum! Yum! I also ate them at the picket at the Paul Hobbs Winery this Monday, as did many of the more than 50 people who were there, and as I testified before the Board of Supervisors against Hobbs’ toxic practices on Tuesday. Each of my 20 years here I’ve eaten Gravs at this time of year. “An apple a day keeps the doctors away,” goes the old saying.

But for how long will we have many Gravs here? According to the 2011 Crop Report, there were only 600 acres of Gravs left, probably less than 400 acres now. In l957 there were 5,500 acres.

Among the fallen Gravs were those on the 48-acre apple orchard adjacent to Apple Blossom School on Watertrough that Hobbs clear-cut in June. Over 700 students attend five schools right there.

Sonoma County has good grape growers. Hobbs is a bad apple and a bad neighbor. He is a repeat offender who often breaks the rules and then pays small fines, considered to be among the costs of doing business.

Last week CBS evening news showed the orchard he cut and interviewed one of the many mothers complaining about how this bully’s toxic practices hurt her child.

After Hobbs illegally cut the creek-side vegetation there, we got a stop work order. The Ag. Commissioner shut him down for a month, for which neighbors, parents, and others are thankful.

I was there when Hobbs cut the trees. Consider visiting that apple graveyard, before they dispose of the dead bodies. See for yourself.

Neighbors and the Watertrough Children’s Alliance, mainly mothers, have written separate letters to the District Attorney suggesting she shut it down permanently. “This is the wrong place for a vineyard,” observed Thomas Cooper, father of a six-year-old in one of the schools and founder of the activist Apple Roots Group.

Yet Hobbs has already built a tall fence to keep everything out but his lucrative grapes. The apple orchard used to be a place where children, families, wildlife, and myself walked. It is being converted into industrial alcohol production.

There is a big difference between the food farming that used to happen there and the alcohol that will now be produced there. Sonoma County is loosing its agriculture diversity, which is being replaced by wine production, much of the wealth it extracts leaving the county. Hobbs, for example, sells his wine mainly online.

Fortunately, there are organic grape growers and other sustainable farmers here. I praise organic wineries, such as Porter Creek, Benzinger, Cline, Quivira, and Topolos.

Among the especially bad killers that Hobbs uses are the fungicide mettle, the herbicide trigger, and Monsanto’s notorious RoundUp.
They cause cancer and other diseases, groundwater contamination, developmental/reproductive damage, endocrine disruption, and other problems.

Let me clear up some PR fabrications. To be a “local farmer,” as Hobbs claims, you have to live here, not just come and go through your wine empire. And you need to get your hands in the dirt or on animals. Otherwise you are an industrial alcohol producer, which is what Hobbs is.

Lets stop wine barons from poisoning our children, workers, water, air and the land itself. The mothers, neighbors, and others make moral arguments against the financial power of Sonoma County’s bloated wine industry. It is a classic David vs. Goliath struggle.

Once known by the natural designation Redwood Empire, we are now becoming known as the commercial Wine Country.

(Shepherd Bliss works with the Apple Roots Group.)

I truly believe the time has come ,and long past due for the farm workers to become completely aware and educated upon the extreme health dangers to themselves and their families ,including children which come from any exposure from the numerous poisons they are handling while working with wineries and the processing of non-organic grapes .

There needs to be people who will, and can be interpreters and also knowledgeable in the processing of non -organic vineyards and harvesting of their grapes. Many farm workers do not realize the risks and dangers of the business their families depend on for their financial support ,and honestly,from my experience alot of the vineyard owners really do not care about what all the chemicals and working conditions do to their workers,:thumbsup: who dedicate their lives to grow and harvest the crops which make their bosses rich. They need to learn the real truth and not what the winery owners tell them ,which is not the real truth about all the hazzards of this greedy business.

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Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

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Among the especially bad killers that Hobbs uses are the fungicide mettle, the herbicide trigger, and Monsanto’s notorious RoundUp.
They cause cancer and other diseases, groundwater contamination, developmental/reproductive damage, endocrine disruption, and other problems.

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I appreciate Mamaj for bringing up the damages to farm workers when their bosses use pesticides. We have interviewed some of them, and have been told of the high miscarriage rates among vineyard workers and their spouses. Some workers near Cloverdale told us that when certain poisons were sprayed they were moved off the land and into hotels. They were also told never to drink the water or brush their teeth with it at any time, though it was OK to takes baths in it.

At the picket at Paul Hobbs Winery on Monday we got many honks of support from passing cars, especially from the Latinos. They know. Our struggle against the vineyard conversion on Appletrough has many dimensions. One of the most important is with regard to the health threats of all stages of the conversion:

1) Taking the trees down and also the toxic dust that creates, and in this case the erosion it creates when you cut around the stream.

2) Disturbing soil with years of DDT, lead, etc., which are released into the air and water.

3) Poisons used to treat that soil to ready it for the grapes.

4) Planting wine grapes and the huge amount of water that will take. I have had a French house-guest for the last week. He informs me that in France, where the wines truly taste much better, you cannot irrigate in the premier wine areas. In the old days most established vineyards in Sonoma County were dry farmed, because it concentrates the taste in the grape. I dry farm my berries, apples, and tomatoes. I am going for taste not largeness.

5) Following all these there is 6-8 years before the grape vines produce, during which time everything else in the area, including plants, are chemically assaulted. If you visit Hobbs winery at 3355 Gravenstein Highway North, you will note that the ground is bare between the rows. The Earth prefers to be covered, so it will throw up more vegetation, which will then be further assaulted. On my farm and other organic, sustainable, and permaculture places, we have cover crops between the rows, which also helps hold the soil there, rather than erode.

The struggle against Paul Hobbs and the chemical part of the bloated wine industry will be a long-time struggle, for the children, the workers, the Earth itself, and diverse agriculture.

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Posted in reply to the post by mamaj:

I truly believe the time has come ,and long past due for the farm workers to become completely aware and educated upon the extreme health dangers to themselves and their families ,including children which come from any exposure from the numerous poisons they are handling while working with wineries and the processing of non-organic grapes .

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