And Nick, I wish we could say your locally-sourced tomato plants were safe, and they may be. But if you neighbor, or their neighbor’s neighbor, went over to the garden center at the local Lowe’s or Home Depot and bought plants infected with fungal spores, well, they’ll end up on yours too. That’s the real outrage in this — big box stores not only harm those who shop there, they harm all of us.

Veritas Farms is one of the farms I went to on Saturday (they’re up in New Paltz). So far they’ve escaped. But they closed their u-pick and Stephanie and Paul who own the place will no longer let visitors (i.e., those who come to the farm to buy their produce, eggs, and meat) walk around. Other farms in the area, careful organic farmers all, have already had to pull their tomatoes and potatoes. People will really be hurting from this.

If I was prone to conspiracy theories–which I thankfully I am not–I’d be imaging some vast corporate plot to destroy local agriculture.