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Scary Study - Roundup
On Tuesday, September 25, 2012 7:46:26 AM UTC-6, songbird wrote:
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 " 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. " The added chemical fertilizer does not "burn" organic matter out of the soil. Obviously you have never farmed. Excessive amounts of chemical fertilizers especially anhydrous ammonia may have a deleterious effect on the micro-organisms naturally present in the soil. These micro-organisms are very important to how organic matter breaks down to free up nutrients that plants require. Farmers who allow oil drilling companies to spread waste drilling mud on their fields are totally unaware of the damage that these muds do to the micro-organisms present in the soil. Nothing grows without these micro-organisms. |
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