EDITOR: The “Sonoma County Winegrowers’ 2nd Annual Sustainability Report” is just another spin project. While their “Defining Sustainability” is laudable, vineyards by definition are not sustainable. Grape growing is monocropping, which is bad for the soil, bad for the natural ecology and in reality does not reap nearly the dollars per acre as, for example, Singing Frogs Farm does. This small farm, where their practices actually are sustainable, grows life giving food, and sensitive humans can not only taste the resulting quality but can feel the differences in his or her body.
I drive by acres and acres of nothing but grape vines and feel no life giving energy at all. The massive spraying of Roundup or other deadly chemicals to “control weeds” is lethal to not only humans but to any being who inhabits the soil. Soil is a living, breathing organism that survives and thrives when we focus on restoring the degradation that monocropping agriculture has caused over the years here in Sonoma County.
Humans buying up ranch land and turning them into designer wines may bring in tax dollars, but at what costs to all being living in Sonoma County? My husband, a friend and I, along with our four-legged family member, recently drove to the Lodi area to partake in a free tour offered by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to hear about and see the Sandhill Cranes that overwinter in this area. You can see the detriment of vineyards on the prehistoric and awesome birds. They have no access to the land on which grape vines are planted since their wingspan is much too great to negotiate these fields that have been planted between levies. The Nature Conservancy, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife plus numerous “duck clubs” are working to revert more of the land back to wetlands where Sandhill Cranes have come to overwinter for millennia.
When are we humans going to expand our thinking to include other being besides ourselves?
Respectful of all beings,
Cathie Haynes
Sebastopol