Consumerism

Google image

I wanted to buy some predatory nematodes.  Crane fly larvae are lumping up my lawn and the gross and fragile and weird flying adults are in my house, on my floor, and irritating me to no end.  So, I went to the local nursery to get some eater-bugs to control them.  

There were several sizes of the little eater-creatures; 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million.  In a little container thing that I mix with water and sprinkle on my lawn.  Each with a price that reflects the quantity.

The thing is, how do I know how many I am getting?  You can't see them without a microscope, and I don't carry one around.  I posed the question to the clerk; 'How do I know that there are a million or 2,315 in this container?'.  He said, 'Well, you have to trust us.'  "Xcuse me??"  I would never trust someone like that if the commodity was, say, caviar, or broccoli!  'Do you have a microscope so I can check this myself?'  I ask.  'No.'  'How about a statement from the farmer saying that s/he legally confirms that there are X amount of predatory nematodes in this sample?'  'No'.

This is a consumer fraud in the making.  I am telling you, you can pay for a million and get twenty thousand or two!  No way to know!  And, how do you come back on a fraudulent distributor?  In a civil suit, do you say, 'Well, it seemed to me that the lawn was lumpier than if one million nematodes were munching away, rather than less than I had paid for.  I'd say it was more like 250,000.'  Or, 'Yeah, there were, like, fifty more adult crane flies that I had to kill rather than the twenty I'd have had if a million nematodes were in my lawn.'  

This is an overlooked area of consumerism.  We gardeners need to contact our congressmen in order to be able to buy predatory nematodes with confidence!