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Pesticides are killing the world's soils

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#121

Post by gravelc »

Ma8ee wrote: post #95
gravelc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other downside with the GM approach that people rarely mention is that there are no transformation protocols for many crops.

What is a transformation protocol in this context?

The ability to genetically modify a crop. Generally (though not always) you need a tissue culture protocol to regenerate whatever you've transformed into a plant (so shoots, roots etc.). Plenty of species are recalcitrant to the transformation itself when using things like agrobacterium or projectile bombardment, or recalcitrant to tissue culturing.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#122

Post by [deleted] »

rosetremiere wrote: post #44

In Switzerland, we're soon going to vote on two initiatives ¹² aiming at reducing pesticide use. The first is essentially about forbidding the use of all artificial pesticides by 2031 (also importation of food that was produced abroad using pesticides). The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc. I feel like they are quite dra…

[deleted]

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#123

Post by dosshell »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #70
rosetremiere wrote: post #44

In Switzerland, we're soon going to vote on two initiatives ¹² aiming at reducing pesticide use. The first is essentially about forbidding the use of all artificial pesticides by 2031 (also importation of food that was produced abroad using pesticides). The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc. I feel like they are quite dra…

> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround. If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell. The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is…

> The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West

Could you elaborate on this? Very few countries i know in the west have a 2-party system.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#124

Post by PoignardAzur »

Impassionata wrote: post #118
sampo wrote: post #64

This is a skillfully written piece to raise anger. But if you look closely, there are some signs: This piece refers to a study [1]. As they mention, this Scientific American piece is written by 2 of the 5 authors of the study. 4 out of 5 of the study authors don't work in a conventional academic institution, but in nature conservation non-profits [2, 3]. The study [1] is titled "A Hazard Assessment". If you know the…

This is a skillfully written piece to deny and hedge. But if you look closely, there are some signs. This comment refers to some scientists. But it's actually written by an Internet Commentator. If you notice that Internet Commentators tend to talk without paying attention to what they're saying, you'll see the motivated reasoning at work. He goes from affirming that toxic things are toxic with some weird indignation…

That's an appeal to authority.

I think the comment you're responding to is valuable, even if the person writing it has no credentials and is themselves biased. Explaining reasons why the author might be biased gives me useful information. If we say "that's bad because they're biased too and also not a researcher", we're essentially saying "We don't want to see any contradiction to research articles published on HN".

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#125

Post by mushbino »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #70
rosetremiere wrote: post #44

In Switzerland, we're soon going to vote on two initiatives ¹² aiming at reducing pesticide use. The first is essentially about forbidding the use of all artificial pesticides by 2031 (also importation of food that was produced abroad using pesticides). The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc. I feel like they are quite dra…

> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround. If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell. The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is…

The success of that type of system relies pretty heavily on having an informed populace. It's worth noting that in the US almost all of our media is owned by just a handful of corporations. We can vote on things all day long but it doesn't necessarily mean it'll be in our own interest.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#126

Post by rini17 »

jnotwell wrote: post #113
rosetremiere wrote: post #44

In Switzerland, we're soon going to vote on two initiatives ¹² aiming at reducing pesticide use. The first is essentially about forbidding the use of all artificial pesticides by 2031 (also importation of food that was produced abroad using pesticides). The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc. I feel like they are quite dra…

If you're interested in the subject, I highly recommend Tomorrow's Table [1], a book by Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist and geneticist, and Raoul Adamchak, her husband and an organic farmer (disclaimer: my fiancé works in Pam's lab). The subject of the book isn't pesticides or biodiversity per se, but rather how to produce food sustainably in the face of population growth and climate change. An anecdote from the b…

Somewhat lower yields are fine, just reallocate land from other uses. In Europe there's overproduction so large parts of land ended up growing biofuels, which is incredibly stupid. In America large part is fed to cows (in Europe grazing is preferred).

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#127

Post by londons_explore »

puchatek wrote: post #74
londons_explore wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other political reasons for the ban... Do you want your whole food supply dependant on licensing from another nation who is an ally today, but could use this as a bargaining chip to "do as we say or we'll stop licensing you corn and destroy your agriculture industry".

If this was the only driver then the logical response wouldn't be a ban but rather more r&d spending to develop European alternatives.

Any European alternative developed would end up banned in the US, the biggest corn market. The US doesn't let people muscle in on its flagship agritech industries.

Europe might be a big enough market to be worth the R&D though - although it doesn't grow anywhere as much corn as we do.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#128

Post by Ma8ee »

londons_explore wrote: post #120
Ma8ee wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a false dichotomy. It is perfectly possible to get good yields with farming practices that use neither pesticides nor GM.

It isn't as much of a false dichotomy as you make out. At any point in the decision making chain, in general, the decision is "should be do this new thing, so should we not". So it really is a dichotomy, at least as far as the decision maker is concerned.

It is certainly a false dichotomy, because you paint it as a decision between GMO and conventional non-GMO farming. But as in all false dichotomies, there are more alternatives.

And no, that is not how decisions are made. You don't stand stupidly and consider if you should drive your car to work this morning or not, without at the same time taking into account the alternatives and their consequences. How long would it take to walk, how is the path, the weather? Are public transport available, how much does it cost, how long would it take?

So there is no dichotomy for the decision maker either.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#129

Post by PoignardAzur »

sofixa wrote: post #106

So is this about the world or US soils? The title suggests the former, but everything in the article and all the authors of the study are around the US. Considering the vastly different regulations and practices in the EU ( e.g. grazing, crop rotation are very popular) i suppose the situation is different.

> Considering the vastly different regulations and practices in the EU ( e.g. grazing, crop rotation are very popular)

Source? From what I heard, crop rotation here isn't widely used yet.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#130

Post by mellavora »

Ovah wrote: post #81
rosetremiere wrote: post #44

In Switzerland, we're soon going to vote on two initiatives ¹² aiming at reducing pesticide use. The first is essentially about forbidding the use of all artificial pesticides by 2031 (also importation of food that was produced abroad using pesticides). The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc. I feel like they are quite dra…

> The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc. Anecdotally through medical school I've heard that there is evidence that antibiotic overuse in livestock, contrary to intuition, has no correlation with antibiotic resistance of human pathogens.

odd, because the literature is full of studies showing rather high correlations.

Here is a nice review article published in the Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...

The WHO is pretty convinced of the connection https://www.who.int/news/item/07-11-2017-stop-using-antibiot...

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