Billy wrote:
Roy wrote:
....
You shouldn't through words like "ignorance" around so carelessly.

*hahahaha*


When you say things like, "If small amounts increase the chance of
cancer in rats then DON'T FEED IT TO RATS...problem solved.", you can
expect to be consigned to a playpen.

Ignorance can be cured, stupidity, can't.

and the fact that reality doesn't care if you
are stupid and/or ignorant, if in the end you
poison your environment enough that it can no
longer sustain life then you and/or your children
are history.



As a farmer, I know what RoundUp does. I have sprayed quack grass with it and
it works well at the recommended rate. Not bad on Canadian
thistle when applied when they are in the rosette stage in August or
early September. When used for its intended purposes it is a great
product. Other activities of Monsanto with breeding of RR resistant
varieties, I question.

The occasional application to an isolated problem, may have merit,

if it is either occasional or isolated it could be dealt
with in another manner. growing taller perennial cover
crops, not mowing too short, hand weeding, targeted grazing
by goats, ...


but
in wholesale use for weeding crops, you are damaging the topsoil, which
in the long run we will need top grow post industrial crops.

besides the fact that monoculture farming
wastes a lot of productivity because the land
is left bare for long periods of time along
with erosion of the topsoil.


Presently,
it takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to produce a calorie
of food; before the advent of chemical fertilizer a farm produced more
than two calories of food energy for every calorie of energy invested.

this equation begins to shift with the introduction
of solar and wind energy into the mix. that at least
is a small improvement, but i still agree that the
adding of chemical fertilizers without improving the
soil overall is going to still be a problem. it burns
the organic matter out of the soil very quickly.


Interplanting will grow more food than monocultures. For this more labor
intensive agriculture, you need the ecology of topsoil.

i think the problem is much more than damage
to the soil, i think there is a lack in studies
which track the effects of the gene fragments
inserted into food plants. how those fragments
are digested, if they can start an allergic
or other autoimmune response in people before
they reach the stomach and intestines, if they
affect the digestive tract microbes, etc.

one mention in recent news that made me think of
the law of unintended side effects -- about how
GMO crops have tougher stalks which requires machines
to get new/harder/different tires more often (some
farmers have their tires baked to harden them) that
chopping blades wear out faster, etc.


songbird