31–40 of 135 posts
I am really looking forward to the day we can replace chemical herbicides with weed-hunting robots. It seems such a huge market opportunity... little, inexpensive bots that can roam a field, picking out weeds the moment they appear as seedlings, never touching the crop itself, not putting anything in the soil. When I was a kid growing up in central Illinois in the 1970s, before Roundup, "walking beans" was a common s…
I am really looking forward to the day we can replace chemical herbicides with weed-hunting robots. It seems such a huge market opportunity... little, inexpensive bots that can roam a field, picking out weeds the moment they appear as seedlings, never touching the crop itself, not putting anything in the soil. When I was a kid growing up in central Illinois in the 1970s, before Roundup, "walking beans" was a common s…
> ...10,000 further cases are pending, worrying Bayer investors as well as farmers who rely on the product as a cheap, effective herbicide. > Cancer may only be part of the story. Studies over the past decade suggest that glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — pollutes water sources, hangs around in soil far longer than previously suspected, and routinely taints human food supplies. I mean... yeah. I'm not f…
Many herbicides are harmful in some way, but most are safe if used properly (i.e. respecting the correct dosage for each target, respecting the safety interval, etc). Buying organic is not safer, though, because one can still use herbicides in organic farming, as long as they aren't synthetic. Sometimes the safer organic option won't be as safe as the synthetic one. Some herbicides are dangerous, and if safer solutio…
I don't have problems per se with "synthetic" materials, but I do respect that compounds introduced within the past few decades are more likely to have zany side effects than those which plants have evolved alongside for hundreds of thousands of years.
> Be it as it may, the danger will always be greater for farmers than consumers. Integrated Farming accounts for this as well, and the list of available pest management substances is constantly being updated. I don't know how well IF works in the US, but in the EU (Portugal) at least I get updates every now an then.
It seems to me that the disparity in danger can be reduced by backing out of the monoculture / dead soil / carpet bombing style of farming and adopting practices more in keeping with how these plants seem to want to grow.
Here is the paper that made me start to take organic food seriously a few years ago: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/ I don't have the skills to evaluate it in depth but it seems to indicate a plausible connection between glyphosate and leaky gut, which could explain why a lot of people who don't actually have celiac's have troubles with wheat. This is conjecture on my part, but it's possible tha…
I haven't read it entirely so I cannot vouch for its quality, but you might be interested in the following paper which does a critique of their work: [2]
[1] https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Glyphosate%2C%20pat...
[2] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Glyphosate%2C-neurolog...
> ...10,000 further cases are pending, worrying Bayer investors as well as farmers who rely on the product as a cheap, effective herbicide. > Cancer may only be part of the story. Studies over the past decade suggest that glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — pollutes water sources, hangs around in soil far longer than previously suspected, and routinely taints human food supplies. I mean... yeah. I'm not f…
Many herbicides are harmful in some way, but most are safe if used properly (i.e. respecting the correct dosage for each target, respecting the safety interval, etc). Buying organic is not safer, though, because one can still use herbicides in organic farming, as long as they aren't synthetic. Sometimes the safer organic option won't be as safe as the synthetic one. Some herbicides are dangerous, and if safer solutio…
Here is the paper that made me start to take organic food seriously a few years ago: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/ I don't have the skills to evaluate it in depth but it seems to indicate a plausible connection between glyphosate and leaky gut, which could explain why a lot of people who don't actually have celiac's have troubles with wheat. This is conjecture on my part, but it's possible tha…
I wouldn't decide for organic because of that. Like I said in another comment in this thread, organic farming still uses pesticides, just not the synthetic ones. In my opinion as a farmer, the foundational principle of Organic Farming is not a path towards better farming practices, but one that divides what is supposedly natural and organic, and what is artificial and synthetic. This has more to do with a romantic id…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't decide for organic because of that. Like I said in another comment in this thread, organic farming still uses pesticides, just not the synthetic ones. In my opinion as a farmer, the foundational principle of Organic Farming is not a path towards better farming practices, but one that divides what is supposedly natural and organic, and what is artificial and synthetic. This has more to do with a romantic id…
I would say organic is closer to following the precautionary principle
The precautionary principle lies within Integrated Farming, because it is highly adaptable.
There are harmful insecticides being used in organic farming, and the avoidance of synthetic fungicides allows for higher levels of some dangerous fungal toxins in food.
If a fungus-resistant GMO variety were available, organic farmers could then avoid the use of fungicides altogether. But GMOS are completely of of question in OF. Why? Because it is artificial, and that's the end of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glyphosate has been used for over 60 years. It works in a part of the plant that controls photosynthesis. No one is even sure how it would impact humans. Here's a podcast with some more information. They will update if better information comes in it disproves the previous assumptions. https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4676
> No one is even sure how it would impact humans. But is that relevant? Isn't it more sane to let our first assumption be that plant killers aren't good for us? Until we have some compelling reason to believe otherwise?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glyphosate has been used for over 60 years. It works in a part of the plant that controls photosynthesis. No one is even sure how it would impact humans. Here's a podcast with some more information. They will update if better information comes in it disproves the previous assumptions. https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4676
I will try to listen to this later, but until then I don't know if they address this: One concern I've read is that safety testing is done in isolation, and glyphosate is actually used with a surfactant, designed to make it able to penetrate cell walls. The whole is different than the sum of its parts.
I sprayed a bunch of glyphosphate yesterday and I'll spray a bunch more today. I live on country property that is infested with yellow starthistle, an invasive noxious weed. Right now is it's growing season. There's absolutely no practical way to beat it back without chemistry. I'm sympathetic to concerns about our food chain but to the folks hoping for the downfall of Monsanto/Bayer: You are hereby invited over to p…
I'm not familiar with starthistle in particular, but thistles can be controlled through timed cuts and/or burning the seed heads. Takes multiple years and a lot of work though.