Did you know Roundup Ready sweet corn is now available?

[dave1949]

I have a degree in Anmal husbandry/ dairy. and over half a lifetime feeding and providing care for dairy & beef cattle.

I may know less about animal nutrition than you think you know, I'll give you that.

Attacking me and still no answers, even with all that experience and education? What a waste.

 

[dave1949]

Your right dave, Every funder listed is a major herbicide producer I won't deny that but are you saying that these corporations are bribing universities and USDA to document only favorable results?

I support community farming and participate in it on a small degree with local friends/neighbors with vegies from our garden but what do we do to support the masses? I don't think a community farm is going to support Miami or NYC. In 1940 we only had 140m US population and now we have over 300m and our amount of ideal farmland has remained the same. The world population has gone from 2b to just over 7b now. Fortunately farmers have been able to increase yields of corn from about 35 bushels per acre from the 40's to over 150 BPA now mostly from GMO seeds, chemical fertilizers, and herbicide weed control.

CSA's and organic farming are filling a niche' and offering an option to the consumer and that's a great thing. My wife is completely on the organic bandwagon and our grocery bills reflect it. I would say that it increases our expense for groceries by at least 30%. Organic milk is just about double of what normal milk is. If it only marginally cost more to go organic than wouldn't consumer prices reflect that or are organic farmers price gouging for a specialty product? I would think it was to cover their costs.

No, I don't think they are bribing for only favorable results. If a researcher gets a grant, and wants to get another one, and if they are asked to evaluate a very narrow perspective or method, then it's easy to produce a result that makes everyone happy. I don't really trust the USDA as an organization, although I'm sure there are conscientious people there. It is often the case that agencies led by political appointees muzzle the staff or filter the publications to be agreeable with whatever the agency is promoting. It's true in private business also.

There is no doubt in my mind that herbicide treatments, or medications in cattle, or whatever is being tested, can show increased production. That is worth knowing, but it is hardly the entire picture.

What the studies do not address are the side effects of those methods. What harms do they cause or have a potential to cause? Does the researcher even know? Well, probably not because that isn't what the grant is funding. Is there much of anything that happens in a vacuum, that has no result, good, bad or indifferent other than those intended? I think we should assume that there are going to be side effects of the good, neutral and bad varieties. It should not come as a surprise after all.

Too often, for-profit businesses have been guilty of hiding known bad effects, or being ignorant of their probability because that would cost money to know. They do an ice cold calculation: how much can be earned, for how long, versus what are the potential losses.

I once worked for a company that was purchased by Schuller Co. You would know them by the name Johns Manville in the US, who had huge settlements against them for asbestos claims. The Schuller representative pitching the situation to us actually bragged about how they had been able to avoid paying those settlements through long drawn out court actions. If you recall, Johns Manville had internal knowledge of the dangers associated with asbestos well before the issue was publicly acknowledged. I went looking for another job.

The increase in farm production, while the number of farm workers plummeted, is one of those all-American, can do, apple pie stories that farmers can rightfully take some pride in achieving. But who is counting the costs along the way? It has caused a total transformation in our rural lives. It would be about financially impossible for a young person with a yearn to farm to enter the business now as a cold start-up and expect to make a living outside those niche markets, and even then they often rely on a family member with a day job with benefits.

Is it really a good thing that so few people are now employed in farming? Now that the industrial era is on the wane, automation and robots are taking jobs, people are sitting around collecting food stamps. They could be hoeing weeds. Not really funny, but I have a sense that these things are just happening, being driven in direction that profits someone, while the longer-term side effects or evaluation of the greater good remain un-examined.

Are farmers reaping these profits, did farm income rise along with production in relative terms? Corporate farms seem to be doing okay with the government influence on global markets and the tax-paid subsidies they collect. The Monsanto's are doing just fine financially. The food processing industry is in its heyday. Do you check the ingredients labels at the store? I bet your wife does. You would be amazed at where all high fructose corn syrup shows up.

It is not a popular topic, but the planet is over-populated already. The global population is expected to peak at 9-10 billion around the year 2050. We do not have the input resources or downstream disposal methods to support that and maintain a good quality of life.

What we are doing now is adjusting our values to accommodate over population. More people equals more government, more regulation and less freedom. Just about any problem we look at could be avoided or improved by having fewer people on the planet. Water resources, land use, energy, air quality, traffic congestion, war and strife--these are all driven by population numbers.

We are continually nibbling away at our quality of life to compensate for the presence of more people. Put in the context of farming, it means we accept adding rivers of chemicals to the resource stream, growing patented GM plants, and turning food animals into petri dishes because we need the food and the export profits. If we were not being driven to do that, would you say it is a good thing? Would you choose those things if given a choice?

 

[super55]

There are some fabulous compost fertilizer operations in the Yakima Valley, which is irrigated farmland interspersed with dry wasteland. They can use the wasteland to mix chicken manure with straw and roll the compost for months. The thing about replacing fertilizer with compost is that it takes millions of tons of the stuff. You have to take a quarter of your farm out of production, and go to animal confinement operations to collect the manure. You also have to keep compost runoff out of waterways, so it's only suitable in low rainfall areas.

Composting does not cause reduced yields, though. Orchardists value chicken/straw compost because it is very biologically active and actually reduces fruit tree diseases. Another popular practice is to plant a nitrogen fixing winter cover crop, like peas, and plow it under in the spring as "green manure." It's expensive in fuel and time, but saves on fertilizer. If you can green chop the peas, it even makes decent silage.

Excellent post Larry, You address some very key points about some of the shortfalls of composting but also address some of the benefits. Like you said legumes do an excellent job of taking N from the atmosphere and transfer it to the soil. Many farmers are already into this planting peas, beans, or clovers after a crop harvest to replace N from heavy users such as corn. They will often compliment it with a cereal grain like winter wheat or Rye to help obtain anything left over in the soil and then either till, spray, crimp or mulch the crop before planting the cash crops. It's old farming practices brought into modern era farming which is fantastic. Add nutrients and minimize erosion while giving some weed suppression. Berseem clover can add up to 220# of N and 5 tons of dry matter to an acre of soil :thumbsup:

The downside is that the further north you go the more difficult it gets to implement due to the shorter growing season often one has to delay planting while trying to kill off the winter cover crop. Whats the herbicide of choice? Thats right roundup. Than on top of that the seed used is generally RR seed just because it's cheap insurance in case the first burndown didn't kill all the cover crop they can go back over and reapply.

Anybody interested in more about cover crops and what to use this link is absolutely fantastic. It's a free PDF download.

Managing Cover Crops Profitably, 3rd Edition / Books / Learning Center / SARE Nationwide - SARE

 

[RickB]

Attacking me and still no answers, even with all that experience and education? What a waste.

Herds of stressed and improperly nourished dairy & beef cattle are both un profitable and unsustainable. Neither is the goal of a skilled manager. If you want answers, get out and learn how herds are actually fed and managed rather than reading reactionary worst-case garbage that highlights those few who use the techniques you are so upset about.

Every truclkoad of milk that is delivered to a licensed dairy processing plant is tested for antibiotic residue before it is unloaded.
Carcasses are similarly tested. There is a zero-tolerance for antibiotic residue in both product classes.
Both the economics and cultural benefit of preventative-level antibiotic dosing in cattle disappeared long ago, yet the stories persist. Antibiotic use in dairy cattle per capita is probably less than that of the human population.

The vast majority of ruminants we raise eat far more roughage than concentrates as measured by any yardstick you may choose.
Long-term concentrate-only diets have always been costly, and not the best answer nutritionally. Generally it doesn't happen other than in print.
The benefits of grain finished beef are market driven, not shoved down the consumer's throat. Farmers produce to a demand.
There are no "grass fed beef" production standards, and much of the beef marketed as such is grain finished away from public view so as to be tender enough to chew.

 

[daugen]

several of you are genuine scholars on this topic and I am sure impressed by what I'm learning here, so thank you.

As someone who grew up on a farm, with a father who loved to read Rodale's latest, and this was back in the fifties, I'm very skeptical that adding huge amounts of chemicals, of any kind, are good for a farm field. Yes, you can juice up a race horse with amphetamine and win the race, but what about the poor horse?
Are we doing that to our land?

What I've learned here is that Roundup is about as safe as it gets today. There are likely many more worse actors than Roundup. And I've learned we have a huge amount of regulatory oversight likely easily overwhelmed by even larger agribusiness pressures. So for me it's back to square one, and I carefully inspect food before I buy it, and eat it. But I sure don't know if what's "in it" is going to be transferred into my body in some fashion. And I think I have a right to know that.

sometimes I buy organic produce at the Acme, and the organic apples sure don't look as shiny or fancy as the carnauba waxed apples in the big bins. The problem is that I know what carnauba wax is, I use it religiously on my car, and I simply do NOT want to eat it. Let me repeat, I don't want to eat car wax. And most of the time, I'm not given a choice. At least one can peel a banana. But who knows what's in those bananas, coming from an area of the world that likely has a fraction of the regulatory oversight that we do.
Are they grown in a field next to the chemical plant in Honduras? And who is going to know?

We are what we eat. I'm convinced of that.
And I'm convinced what we eat can have an impact on whether we get cancer or not.
Three members of my family, the last generation, all died of cancer, and early in life.
And now my wife has it. We all have to die of something, but if eating sensibly gives me a longer life,
well, lets' just say I only nibble at a steak anymore.

As a teenager I pulled a two bottom plow with a John Deere B. In the spring, there was an amazing smell that would come up out of a freshly plowed field. I'm not sure it would smell the same now, fifty years later.

Growing food for others is a genuine responsibility, with real issues that go far beyond profitability. Are we being good stewards of the land, the land that will be here long, long after we have been returned to the soil ourselves?

I sense a concern for that stewardship here, and honestly believe most farmers, particularly second, third, fourth gen family farmers, understand the importance of stewardship very well. I'm just not sure Monsanto or Dow do, not usually a priority for a sales/revenue driven company.

 

[super55]

Dave there are a lot of things in your last post that I completely agree with on. Every action has adverse or undesirable reactions. Conventional tilling creates erosion, herbicides have health hazards, Plastic mulch has tons of plastic waste. On top of that it all comes down to dollars and cents. Just like any business farming has to be profitable and I will be the first to admit farming is in it's heyday. Mandatory US fuel being 15% ethanol, subsidies and growing demand have kept grain prices high. When you see an acre of farmland going for 8-10 grand or leasing 500 an acre. I believe it when people say invest in ag land and not gold. Personally I believe this is a bubble that will eventually burst and prices will get back into normal values.

Back in the 80's (when prices were rock bottom for grain) the gov created CRP to pay farmers not to put their land in production and it still is in effect today. Now a lot of farmers are getting out of the program because the land can pay more with farming but it's nice to know that if crop prices plummet there's that cushion knowing the gov will still give you money not to utilize it.

I've always wanted to have my own little farm. I food plot for wildlife as a hobby and already possess a lot of the equipment required. After doing some research I concluded that growing food for human consumption is next to impossible to make it a self sustaining business. It definitely can create supplemental income but even going through things like USDA and FDA inspections to even be able to sell at a place other than a farm market really hinders one's ambitions. Specialty crops like premium hay for horses, Hopps for microbrews or grapes for wine seem much easier to establish on a small scale than to grow table fare and have to deal with so many stipulations for the small scale farmer.
I can only presume this is why you don't see anybody getting in the dairy business. The startup cost and regs make it a nightmare.

I would love to see more people working in the ag industry but getting people to work a hoe in the field just won't happen. First the work is seasonal, second it won't pay well and third you would be able to make as much money living off the welfare system as you would working. People would realize pretty quick that the work isn't worth it because after reporting the income and seeing the adjustment in the welfare check. You could pay the workers more but it would trickle down to the price of the product on the shelf.

When I was kid back in the early 80's and my dad was laid-off my whole family went and worked the orchards right beside the migrant workers. Unemployment ran out, lived off blocks of gov. cheese (It's actually pretty good stuff) and peanut butter. All of our money went into the family fund. I was 6 years old at that time. Now days if someone tried that Health and Human services would probably arrest the farmer for using child labor.

 

[daugen]

Super,
I've never understood CRP. Half the world is hungry.

as for agri chemicals and GMO, maybe the Dept of Agriculture needs to get some
feedback, some public input to offer some counterpoint to the powerful and slick PR campaigns and lobbying
by the Cargill's of this world.

We've come a long way from the fish planted in the corn rows.
And that actually happened in our area by the Lenape Indians, a local little factoid.
Of course, "back then" the fish from the Delaware River were not infused with today's chemical
stew of heavy metals, PCB's and e-coli from upstream municipalities dumping all their raw sewage into the River,
and simply saying oops. We'll have it fixed by Friday. Meanwhile...

So today I would surely not put the same fish in my row of corn. So the old way is not always the best.

 

[arrow]

Europe has generally removed fluoride from drinking water because they fluroridate their table salt. There is no doubt that consuming excess fluoride causes mottled, discolored teeth. If you eat European table salt, you should not also consume it in your drinking water. Be careful what you bring back from Europe. You should spend some time reading Quackwatch. It would bail you out of a lot of the pseudoscientific trash floating around on the internet.

Is Fluoride Good to Have in Drinking Water?

Fluoride went from water to table salt in some European countries because of the expense to fluoridate small bodies of water. There are controversies within these countries to even eliminate this practice. Let's do this Larry. As you know, any particular stand on a subject can have its naysayers and yes votes. Both parties can bring in research to verify their stance. To wit, one day coffee is good for you and the next day there are articles on why its bad for you. On and on it goes. So what's a person to do? I can tell you what I do. I try to use common sense balancing out what i think my quality of life should be against what I need to do to stay healthy. In this matter and similar matters, I am against fluoridation and here's why. First, I do not have a choice in tap water. The government has seen fit to put fluoride in it. 2. If fluoride is available in tooth paste,gels, dentist application, supplements and mouth wash, why do i need it in my drinking water in which I have no choice? 3. If fluoride occurs naturally as "calcium fluoride" in our streams, lakes, well water and other bodies, why is it necessary to put silicofluoride and sodium fluoride in these bodies of water? The former occurs naturally, the latter two are industrial byproducts from aluminum and phosphate production. I do not choose to have that kind of fluoride in my body whether one faction states that it is safe while another states it isn't. The government has mass medicated the population. To me that's just plain wrong. At least you have a choice with a flu shot and if you want fluoride there are many ways to get it in other products. To me it comes down to economics where it was more important for chemical companies with government connections to make profits with a "by product" than the government thinking fluoridation was unnecessary. Where the dollar reigns, even if its a question, my and your health comes second. I'd like to avoid being a party to that as much as possible.

 

[sixdogs]

Concerning chicken manure...when I lived in New England we were deathly afraid of using it in our gardens because the "common knowledge" was that it contained copper residue and that the heavy metal would be bad for the ground and leach into the groundwater. Copper is fed to keep the shells hard enough for shipment. Has something changed in the chicken manure argument?

 

[Pine Strip]

All I know is that when I'm down to the last cornflake in my Pandora's Box of cereal, something is buggin' me so I hope for another box. I think Pine Strip is onto something. Until now, I never realized that hope was bad.:confused2:

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Whole Foods shares surge as growth continues - May. 7, 2013
There is some hope !