Pesticides are killing the world's soils • Hacker News Board

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#191

Post by yummypaint » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #189

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…

Removing antibiotics use I think is cruel and wasteful as you're going to just instead cause culling of livestock and increased greenhouse gas emissions per piece of product from livestock. Also "artificial pesticides" are better for the environment than "natural pesticides" for equivalent effect. Natural pesticides are less effective and more frequent spraying which has additional problems associated with it.

Removing antibiotics as a cheap default option (as it is in the US) creates an economic incentive to ensure livestock health and welfare. In practice antibiotics are used mostly to compensate for unhealthy conditions and to increase yield (i think only by about %10 for milk, for instance). Keeping livestock on broad spectrum antibiotics continuously for their entire lives is not only medically unnecessary, but deeply irresponsible and a contributor to rising antibiotic resistance.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#192

Post by jtdev » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

timeinput wrote: post #12

Does anyone have sources for suggestions about what we should do? I read these articles, and worry, and wonder what can I do. It's not clear to me that buying organic mono-cropped bananas at the mega mart is in anyway better or worse than buying non-organic mono-cropped bananas. I'd really like to just build up some more understanding on what I can do in my daily life to make things not worse.

Support your local CSA and sustainable agriculture.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#193

Post by jtdev » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

My next door neighbors just had a pesticide treatment sprayed on the entire exterior of their house... including patio furniture, outdoor cooking area, the yard that their young children play in... this just one week after a neighborhood wide mosquito treatment (I opted out and asked for an MSDS from the application company).

I just don't understand people. I would rather see a spider/wasp/ant occasionally than be doused in pesticides.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#194

Post by saalweachter » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

PoignardAzur wrote: post #184

saalweachter wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I thought the corn-soybean rotation was the norm in the US?

I'm French.

Do you all not rotate? Just the same crop in the field year after year after year?

That is so shocking to me; growing up in the Midwest we were always rotating the crops, usually between the standard mix of corn, soybeans and wheat, but occasionally through sorghum or a grass mix. I assumed it was the standard for conventional agriculture everywhere.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#195

Post by jbotz » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

bvrlt wrote: post #18

refurb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dengue fever is a serious disease and it’s not rare in Singapore, there were 40,000+ cases in 2020 which is pretty high for a population of 5M. If they stopped their mosquito control efforts it would be disastrous for human health.

Wouldn't a healthier ecosystem better handle mosquitoes, though? Predators of mosquitoes are bats, birds, fishes, frogs…

And, ironically, other insects (for example, dragonflies) which are also killed by the fogging. What's more, the predatory insects usually have a much longer life-cycle, so after a fogging the mosquitos will come back long before their predators. Thus, once you start fogging, you have to keep doing it or you'll end up with more mosquitos than before.

I've actually seen this happen... ok, my observation is purely anecdotal and has no scientific validity, but the effect I observed was pretty dramatic. Where I live in South America dengue is also endemic, and during some particularly bad Dengue outbreaks a few years ago the city government did some extensive one-shot fogging. Immediately afterward there were practically no mosquitos at all for a few weeks and reduced numbers for some months. But thereafter for at least 6 months to a year everybody complained that the mosquitos were worse than ever (mostly without making any connection to the insecticide fogging, they just complained the way people complain about the weather).

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#196

Post by thatcat » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #63

thatcat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there were several earlier trials. I think there were issues in scaling up the mosquito modification process.

There is a very scalable process. You breed mosquitoes, about half of which have the gene you're after (so the population isn't infertile). You have machines that can sort them very quickly, and you only release to the wild the infertile male ones. I made a sorting machine that can sort 10 larvae per second - it's all just computer vision looking at their microscopic balls!

Sick, thanks for the process details. Are there plans for larger releases? if not, do you know what is preventing that from moving forward?

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#197

Post by asdff » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #174

samatman wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you shouldn't. We share about 50% of our DNA with a banana.

And that 50% seems to do something very different in humans than in bananas

Usually it does the exact same things actually!

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#198

Post by asdff » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #57

rmason wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a naturally occurring bacterium in the soil that produces proteins specifically active against certain insects. This is the exact same insecticide used by certified organic growers. Plant breeders have just engineered the plants to produce it in their leaves, not in the corn itself. For thirty years objections have been raised, scientific research has been done disproving the objections…

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".

Just do what European pharmaceutical companies do and make a generic version.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#199

Post by mdavis6890 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

It's easy to be mad about some outcome that you don't like. It's much harder to actively consider tradeoffs among various available (actual, not hypothetical) options.

Pesticides raise crop yields and increase farmer productivity. Of course we could stop using pesticides, but then we would need to devote more labor to farming, losing out on whatever else that labor would have produced instead. We would have fewer haircuts, shoes, medical procedures and houses. Maybe that's okay - I'm not trying to argue that point. But we have to consider the tradeoffs.

Re: Pesticides are killing the world's soils

#200

Post by mikehotel » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

smhost wrote: post #131

mikehotel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If insect populations are dwindling and in need of protection, why would we suggest people eat them? Wouldn’t that accelerate their demise? Also, most folks are not protein deficient, but they are not getting enough fiber. https://www.vox.com/2019/3/20/18214505/fiber-diet-weight-los...

i didn't say that we should eat bugs because insect populations are declining. i said we are going to have to start eating bugs anyway (e.g. there are no more wild fish), and also that insect populations are declining.

Understood. I think most people would start eating plants for protein before they resort to insects unless the insects are processed beyond recognition and relabelled. :)