What is supposed to be a puff piece about Laura Avery, the supervisor of Santa Monica, California’s four farmer’s markets, instead highlights the risks of relying on people peddling soundbites rather than food.

The reporter asks:

Incidents like the salmonella-spinach scare — does that freak out people at farmers markets?

And the answer from the farmer’s market guru is:

They traced [the source of the salmonella] to runoff from a salmonella-infested feedlot, animals creating salmonella in their intestine because they’re fed grain that they can’t digest.

The reporter then asks, How about making you secretary of agriculture?

It was E. coli O157:H7 in 2006 in spinach. The same strain was found in a neighboring cow-calf operation – not a feedlot – and they were eating grass, not grain. The spinach involved was transition organic.

But that one sentence from the person who runs the farmers’ markets encapsulates everything that’s wrong about the discussion of food today in the U.S. — people hear things in the ether and tailor the message to suit their own means.

I got a lot of respect for anyone who can make a living farming, but does there have to be so much BS involved when it comes to marketing?