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Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

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Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#321

Post by elago »

tptacek wrote: post #311
elago wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my strange corner of the world that hasn't been "agronomically optimized", there aren't giant monoculture farms spraying insecticides, and there are dozens of species acting as pollinators. No one pays for "pollinator services". I suppose there's a business opportunity for someone to capture all the rainfall, dam the rivers, and sell it back to me as well. Herbicides and pesticides aren't necessary for agriculture…

You're missing my point. I'm saying there's no natural ecosystem for honey bee pollination in the US because there are no natural honey bees in the US . They're not a native species.

Okay, if that was your point all along then I understand.

Not to move the goalposts, just to share some food for thought. Making a distinction between native and invasive species implies there is some particular snapshot in time when things were "right", when evolution was "done", when new species stopped being introduced into ecosystem by various means and competing with each other.

I think we're concerned with different points. You're saying the pollinator services business is fine and profitable despite the use of insecticides.

I'm saying it's sad that a diverse ecosystem consisting of many pollinators which allowed trees and bushes to bear fruits and berries without paying for a company to truck in a bunch of bees has been replaced by something more profitable, but less resilient and healthy.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#322

Post by tptacek »

elago wrote: post #321
tptacek wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing my point. I'm saying there's no natural ecosystem for honey bee pollination in the US because there are no natural honey bees in the US . They're not a native species.

Okay, if that was your point all along then I understand. Not to move the goalposts, just to share some food for thought. Making a distinction between native and invasive species implies there is some particular snapshot in time when things were "right", when evolution was "done", when new species stopped being introduced into ecosystem by various means and competing with each other. I think we're concerned with diff…

Yes, the subtext of my point is that there's a narrative that the American food supply depends on a natural resource of pollinating insects, and that it is threatened by an unnatural collapse of native pollinating bees.

In fact:

* the parts of our food supply that are heavily dependent on pollinating agents rely entirely on commercial pollination services, not native ambient pollinating species.

* there is strong evidence that no threat exists to commercial pollinators and that standard bee husbandry practices are working just fine. That evidence includes the price of commercial pollination, which would (obviously) rise if collapsing bee populations were making commercial pollinating hives scarce, but which are in fact possibly not even keeping up with inflation, along with the price of new queens (nuc prices have grown over the last 5 years, or at least seemed to be last time I checked, but beekeping has grown immensely in popularity over the last few years as well --- but queen prices haven't really budged at all; granted: my research method here is "find companies that sell queens, follow their prices on archive.org", so I'm ready to be rebutted).

* the honey bees that tend to dominate this conversation are a non-native invasive species. There's a pretty widespread and well-documented belief that the US "feral" honey bee population was wiped out in (IIRC) the mid-80s --- not by pesticides but by another invasive species, the Varroa mite --- and that subsequent to that event, every honey bee you've seen "in the wild" since then is technically somebody's property. That may be changing? There may now be a significant number of feral colonies? Nobody's crop depends on them.

* the entire reason honey bees exist at all in the US is to support at-scale agriculture. They're livestock.

* it is entirely legitimate to worry about things we're doing to threaten native insect species! My objection to the conversation about native pollinators is twofold. First: I think it's disingenuous to imply that threats to native pollinators are the existential threat to our food supply that people claimed CCD was. Second, and much more importantly: neonicotinoid pesticides are not the major threat to native pollinators; they're just a cosmetically appealing villain we insert into this narrative to reassure ourselves that there's a "big pesticide" bad guy we need to organize against. The reality of species loss in the US is that it's a consequence of habitat loss, which implicates all of us, not just some shadowy faceless corporation.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#323

Post by tptacek »

jly wrote: post #153
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in fact not declining. There is no indication at all that a reliable supply of bee-driven pollination service in the US is in any way threatened. You'd be forgiven for not knowing that, though, since the story is presented in the media as if farmers relied on wild honeybees (an invasive species eradicated several decades ago by the Varroa destructor mite) rather than commercially managed bee husbandry.

First, wild honeybees were not eradicated by Varroa. There are many papers written and researchers who have studied substantial wild honeybee populations for decades, and chronicled their decline and resurgence to pre-Varroa numbers. What has happened over the last few decades is that wild North American bees have adapted and are thriving, while 'babied' commercial bees are struggling. Second, the number of commercia…

You just wrote a comment that essentially says there's no issue. Wild North American bees† are thriving. Commercial bees are "struggling". But they're not struggling in any way we can measure, since prices for bee-driven services aren't changing.

If neither commercial pollination nor wild populations are threatened, why is this a top-of-mind issue? My contention: for the same reason glyphosate is. These are cosmetic problems that are easy for us to talk about and assign blame for, without confronting the thorny systemic issues that really implicate out way of live.

† Presumably you either mean invasive feral honey bee colonies, since honey bees don't belong here, or native bee species like the Bombus bees, which aren't exploited at scale in agriculture.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#324

Post by EpicEng »

cabaalis wrote: post #113
EpicEng wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the debate is around whether or not they are facts to begin with.

Yes, which is why I said "facts" and not "the facts." There is the point of this situation, and the point of ignoring a person's informed opinion. I was discussing the latter.

>Yes, which is why I said "facts" and not "the facts."

Wow that is an extremely subtle distinction.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#325

Post by tptacek »

cryoshon wrote: post #296
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in fact not declining. There is no indication at all that a reliable supply of bee-driven pollination service in the US is in any way threatened. You'd be forgiven for not knowing that, though, since the story is presented in the media as if farmers relied on wild honeybees (an invasive species eradicated several decades ago by the Varroa destructor mite) rather than commercially managed bee husbandry.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1393 check out this study. Science is a reputable journal. sure, it's just one study. but there are thousands more. looks like there is ample evidence of bees being harmed by pesticides.

I don't think you heard me say that neonicotinoids don't "diminish bee health".

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#326

Post by elago »

tptacek wrote: post #322
elago wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, if that was your point all along then I understand. Not to move the goalposts, just to share some food for thought. Making a distinction between native and invasive species implies there is some particular snapshot in time when things were "right", when evolution was "done", when new species stopped being introduced into ecosystem by various means and competing with each other. I think we're concerned with diff…

Yes, the subtext of my point is that there's a narrative that the American food supply depends on a natural resource of pollinating insects, and that it is threatened by an unnatural collapse of native pollinating bees. In fact: * the parts of our food supply that are heavily dependent on pollinating agents rely entirely on commercial pollination services, not native ambient pollinating species. * there is strong evi…

"* the parts of our food supply that are heavily dependent on pollinating agents rely entirely on commercial pollination services, not native ambient pollinating species."

So the orchards that cultivate a healthy ecosystem through a diversity of species, and care given to soil health, which grow, produce, and sell fruit for only slightly above factory farming rates aren't part of the food supply?

If you only define food supply = factory farming monoculture, then absolutely the "least bad herbicides and pesticides" are the best thing possible.

Eating almost entirely locally costs far less per year than the difference between and entry level vs top of the line laptop. Eating from nearby food producers who take care of the land is not very expensive relative to other luxuries people invest in. Habitat loss may be inevitable, but factory scale, chemical based monoculture does not implicate all of us, and personal action is quite reasonable.

It's probably less effort than changing your diet for other reasons, but people seem to be more motivated to change their diet for body image reasons, or the soylent-esque lifestyle optimization, etc.

It baffles me that more people aren't raging environmentalist lunatics as I am.

FYI if you think this is bullshit, here's a public demonstration of an alternative to factory farming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3riW_yiCN5E There's a free hour long video that's more in depth but I realize even expecting 10 more minutes of anyone's attention is asking a lot.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#327

Post by tptacek »

elago wrote: post #326
tptacek wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the subtext of my point is that there's a narrative that the American food supply depends on a natural resource of pollinating insects, and that it is threatened by an unnatural collapse of native pollinating bees. In fact: * the parts of our food supply that are heavily dependent on pollinating agents rely entirely on commercial pollination services, not native ambient pollinating species. * there is strong evi…

"* the parts of our food supply that are heavily dependent on pollinating agents rely entirely on commercial pollination services, not native ambient pollinating species." So the orchards that cultivate a healthy ecosystem through a diversity of species, and care given to soil health, which grow, produce, and sell fruit for only slightly above factory farming rates aren't part of the food supply? If you only define f…

And an argument for the importance of this pesticide issue that would be persuasive for people who aren't generally inclined to entertain restructuring all of modern agriculture would be...?

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#328

Post by ianai »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #177
pmoriarty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting and informative article. However, after reading it I came away more confused than I was before -- especially when looking at their "Acute toxicity" and "Chronic toxicity" tables. According to the acute toxicity tables, caffeine is only slightly more toxic than lead, and Vitamin D3 is 5 more times toxic. According to the chronic toxicity tables, both caffeine and Vitamin D3 are about 3 times…

Don't forget that lead is quite a dense material.

Lead also never leaves your system - caffeine does.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#329

Post by Truestuff »

brookhaven_dude wrote: post #305

And Dr Oz panned for railing against GMO and favoring organic food... And to the commenters saying "there is no evidence that GMO foods are harmful" or "non-USDA organic food is causing harm", you have to wonder at where does the burden of proof really lie in case of things that I am ingesting?

The thing about science is that it's fairly easy to prove something is harmful. It's darn near impossible to prove something is safe. Organic food isn't 100% safe, and is more likely than conventional to be contaminated with pathogens such as e coli. But after 25 years of use with no proof otherwise, I'd say GMOs have met the burden of proof.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#330

Post by aesh2Xa1 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

From the article: “All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate. That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Their surreptitiou…

There certainly are controlling interests that exist in our market and government. Regarding players like Vandana Shiva, though, it's also pretty clear that the pendulum swings in both directions; you're better off reading another critic's opinion. The New Yorker had a big piece on her, by the way.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt

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