Ag-Gag Bills Update: No Exploding Watermelons Here, or at Least No Visuals

flckr/S n o R k e l

Watermelons: brimming with flavor... or chemicals? Wouldn't you like to know?

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Awhile back we told you about farm photo bills, that if passed would severely restrict photographers and videographers from documenting farm activity. Well, bills in Florida, Minnesota, and Iowa all failed. Yesterday, Mark Bittman, food columnist at The New York Times, suggested that journalists are often already de facto banned. He mentions the responses he got back from farms he was hoping to visit.

"When a journalist can't see how the food we eat is produced, you don't need ag-gag laws. The system's already gagged," he writes.

He concludes that America is inching closer to the way China operates.

There, as, Bittman writes, the Health Ministry discourages Chinese media outlets from reporting on food safety news, which includes stories about exploding watermelons (due to overuse of chemicals), pork that glows blue, and cooking oil dredged from sewers.

What do you think -- how transparent should farms be? And as consumers, can our eyes handle the truth?

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