Fair enough. I know that I wasn't implying that, and didn't think that the article was either. Just different perceptions I guess.
Weeds Becoming Roundup Resistant
- Thread starter cigaretteman
- Start date
Fair enough. I know that I wasn't implying that, and didn't think that the article was either. Just different perceptions I guess.
You claim that the other side has no evidence, where is your evidence that not using chemicals will cause many people to starve?
One of the great lies is that the use of these chemicals is neccessary to help feed the world. There are millions of people, actually I think it may be a billion people that lack food in the world and we have been using chemicals for some time now. I don't think the corn grown here in Iowa is helping to feed the world. Maybe to help the corn industry come up with creative ways to get corn into products or to help feed animals that are being fed to US citizens. But you show me how the conventional agriculture practiced here in Iowa is helping feed the world?
While just simply growing "organic" food as defined by the USDA might not feed the world, agroecology is way that people could feed the world. The problem is that there would have to be a todal uphevel of the conventional system in the U.S.
Chemical companies have been feeding farmers lies for a long time now about the necessity of their products. Their products aren't necessary for farmers but what for the companies, farmers using their products and depending on their products is necessary.
Ive seen studies that show that by using certain techniques farmers can get the same or sometimes better yield from sustainable techniques as opposed to conventional farming. One of the studies was done by a professor at UNI and another study was partly done by a ISU professor.
Again, one of the problems is implenting a whole new way of doing agriculture.
The rise of chemicals have allowed the average farm size to increase significantly, mostly due to savings numerous passes across the field and a lot of time. Plus, it saves a huge amount of fuel with the extra tillage passes that a more traditional system uses. The chemicals have allowed no-till to come about on marginal land which saves significant soil erosion. I don't like how the USDA incentivizes putting row crops on below average land, instead of keeping it in pasture, but that's an argument for another day.
I don't disagree that there may be other methods that can get the same or better yields from sustainable techniques. With the way modern agriculture in the US is, it won't change. It just takes too much time and diesel fuel to get rid of chemicals in agriculture altogether.
I don't appreciate the super-mega farms either, especially coming from an average family farm in southwest Iowa. But this is the world we live in, and no changes are going to come about tomorrow.
If somebody doesn't appreciate agriculture, they can go ahead and boycott agricultural products, but they'll be naked and starving.
there is only so much ground on which to grow the food needed to feed the world ----- we need to optimize the amount of food grown on that shrinking amount of land. Everything else discussed in this debate is just noise.
Cyclonepride
Thought Police
One of the great lies is that chemicals are necessarily evil.
Life itself would not be possible without chemicals. (i stole this)
Chemicals are not evil, synthetic chemicals are not always good either.
Not sure if you are being philisophical on the bolded but life survived for a long time before humans decided to make up various chemicals (chemistry).
my point was most chemicals occur naturally and few people understand this. OH and there are just as many natural chemicals as synthetic which need to be handled with caution. This 'man and science is evil' theme is just so sad and untrue.
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Your point is not wasted on me. Typically nature contains its chemicals in a safe manner or in a way that doesn't impact itself negatively. Obviously some variation to this but for the most part chemicals occurring in nature when left alone are just part of the cycle. When humans introduce chemicals be they natural or synthetic to an area in which it is not originated bad and good can happen. Proper management is truly the key.
Welcome to 5 years ago. Anyone paying attention has known this has been coming for awhile. People abuse new technology thinking it is a fix all forever, but it's only a tool. Same with corn root-worm resistance. We have 10 more years max of glyphosate resistant crops and then we are back to 1990 technology. Yay!
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And this is an absolute fantasy. There will be no new miracle herbicide and there will most likely never will be. Glyphosate resistance was a freak. A mutation in algea found in a pond that Monsanto had polluted with glyphosate. The enzyme is positioned as a major player in 3 critical metabolic pathways. That is why it works so well. People and companies have been trying to find an enzyme that works as well as glyphosate for about 20 years now with zero success. Odds are we will never find anything that good again.
