Monsanto's Roundup disaster

[grapeman]

grapeman - The planet isn't invincible. We can certainly kill it. Reducing costs, increasing yeilds, and making food cheaper has lowered the quality of our food to rock bottom... but convince whoever you can that it is progress.

hazemaker - Monsanto still doesn't own Xe or Blackwater.

I guess we should form a committee and decide which 2 to 3 billion folks need to die so we can go back to the "good 'ole days" and farm organically.

One thing though, N is N is N. Same for P & K.

 

[Captain Ginyu]

monsanto owns blackwater anyone heard of them?

Monsanto has a private army? Wow, now that's scary news to me. If memory serves me right, Blackwater changed it's name probably 2 times since there were reports of incidents, involving innocent civilians killed in Iraq. Supposedly, they were thrown out of the country, that's about all I know.

 

[Microbeman]

haha this thread is funny. I used to be like you guys, then I went to school...grapeman was the only one giving me hope of realistic thinking and you guys shunned him away so you could continue to hype monsanto's negative reputation. Lets clarify some assumptions..Round up: no longer under patent from monsanto, now any other wonderful agro-chem companies can make it! Lawsuits: most have been settled "out of court" and the farmers are paid off for agreements of nondisclosure. The fact is humans, even you hating on monsanto, are contributing to the demise of humanity more so than any chemical herbicide or multinational corporation can. Realize that as population increases exponentially, the finite resources we all rely on decrease exponentially. That is why use of genetic modification in agriculture is a sexy idea for the Machiavellians that control the world we live in, its very profitable and in a weird fucked up way, helps humanity. I can't blame them and neither can you, so long as you take part in the consumer society that makes humanity so unsustainable. And for those scared, don't be, you most likely consume and wear GMO's everyday and never realize it. Even you Europeans who think that its banned, well not for your animal feed, so hmmm lets get real and stop biting the hand that feeds us.

Better research again....several items are incorrect but a big one is that many farmers have been devastated financially through the lawsuits (eg. Saskatchewan)...however please read the citations in this thread prior to just jumping on the tail end.

 

[Microbeman]

I guess we should form a committee and decide which 2 to 3 billion folks need to die so we can go back to the "good 'ole days" and farm organically.

One thing though, N is N is N. Same for P & K.

Grapeman, now deep down you know that just is not true. You, like many farmers have bought the story sold by the fertilizer manufacturers/sellers hook line and sinker. There is much evidence/proof/(produce) now which demonstrates that naturally grown produce can equal or surpass yields grown with manufactured ionic form fertilizers.

Are you going to tell me that human cognition is so stunted that we can figure out how to capture and bag atmospheric nitrogen but we cannot figure out how to harness and employ the natural growing which occurrs in a redwood (pick a tree) forest?; in a forest there is usually a miniscule amount of soil compared to a corn or wheat field and the amount of mass created each growing season in 'the forest' far surpasses that of the corn or wheat field. Who fertilized the redwoods?

 

[mean mr.mustard]

I'm glad grapeman gave someone hope.

I know what the future looks like on the horizon of modern "agriculture" and it's not pretty... nor should it be with how we've "handled" it.

Monsanto is your friend.... bend over.

 

[headband 707]

Yeah from an airplane humans are put into perspective...we're just a bunch of bi-legged germs running around the planet and 'infecting' certain areas...LOL!

If the human race ceased to exist tomorrow the planet would make changes and restore a lot of the 'bad' done. Something like Roundup will degrade over time as most toxins will...kind of the like the methane eating bacteria that flourished in the Gulf after the oil disaster. It's the radioactive material that will cause problems long after humans are extinct.

If Monsanto did by Xe I would not be surprised as Monsanto is trying to take over food production in the world and would probably need some muscle to deal with issues as they develop probably more likely necessary, and doable, oversees.

There is actually a show about if the human race was to die out and the earth was left without us .. The first disaster would be all our nuclear facilities would start to leak if there was no electricity to keep the water cold where they store the waste.. To say we doing this wrong ,would be an understatement. Personally I think there is a lot of deflection when it comes to the truth in our world. Peace out Headband707

 

[mriko]

I guess we should form a committee and decide which 2 to 3 billion folks need to die so we can go back to the "good 'ole days" and farm organically.

Not enough, humanity would be back to the same crap in no time. 90 to 99% would work better.

Irie !

 

[Ciarán]

no researching here microbeman, just relating what I've heard from my professors. What was I wrong about? citations? you lost me, but sorry to try calm the fear fest, just seemed to me like all you guys got baked and watched the same movie, and are now terrified of something you shouldn't be. The corporations that are the worst, in my opinion, are the ones that control energy, not food. Depends on how you look at it I guess, mriko, you can probably thank them in the next 50-100 years for decreasing the population by 90-99 percent.

 

[Mountain]

just relating what I've heard from my professors.

Since your college educated maybe you can go through Dr. Huber's work and tell me were he is wrong regarding glyphosate.

Microbeman is right...yields with a solid 'organic' program can be excellent. It's not uncommon for the crop consultant I know of to get a 3-4 fold increase in productivity on farms he works with...while building soil, microflora and worm populations. To say 'organic' is not a viable production method is simply not true. The dude manages nute programs on 1,000's and 1,000's of acres. His business is not expanding rapidly because he focuses on organic (soil microflora and worm friendly as his guide) but because he gets significant results...and it's organic...lol.

 

[ilegalalien]

Meanwhile kudzu continues to spread over some of the lushest farmlands on the planet.
Areas once fought over are now some of the poorest community s .
Sure people are being fed, but at what price .

 

[mean mr.mustard]

no researching here microbeman, just relating what I've heard from my professors. What was I wrong about? citations? you lost me, but sorry to try calm the fear fest, just seemed to me like all you guys got baked and watched the same movie, and are now terrified of something you shouldn't be. The corporations that are the worst, in my opinion, are the ones that control energy, not food. Depends on how you look at it I guess, mriko, you can probably thank them in the next 50-100 years for decreasing the population by 90-99 percent.

Food is energy. Be terrified.

 

[Twigster]

A good flick to check out is "One man one cow one planet" it show's how India is able to over come Monsanto's poison. Very intresting video check out

 

[Mountain]

A good flick to check out is "One man one cow one planet" it show's how India is able to over come Monsanto's poison. Very intresting video check out

Cool man...thx for the info. I'm a documentary nut.

 

[trichrider]

no researching here microbeman, just relating what I've heard from my professors. What was I wrong about? citations? you lost me, but sorry to try calm the fear fest, just seemed to me like all you guys got baked and watched the same movie, and are now terrified of something you shouldn't be. The corporations that are the worst, in my opinion, are the ones that control energy, not food. Depends on how you look at it I guess, mriko, you can probably thank them in the next 50-100 years for decreasing the population by 90-99 percent.

ime it won't be 50-100 years, the current paradigm of food production is unsustainable. The corporations that control energy are the ones who will control food shortly...think about how dependent we are on energy, could we make our own? not sufficeintly. Same thing with food, can we make our own? yes, but also not sufficeintly. this diabolical scheme can certainly cause 'culling of the herd' as you so succinctly state.

 

[headband 707]

ime it won't be 50-100 years, the current paradigm of food production is unsustainable. The corporations that control energy are the ones who will control food shortly...think about how dependent we are on energy, could we make our own? not sufficeintly. Same thing with food, can we make our own? yes, but also not sufficeintly. this diabolical scheme can certainly cause 'culling of the herd' as you so succinctly state.

Yeah they are culling the herd and we are the herds lol.. It's called a soft kill.. peace out Headband707

 

[Microbeman]

Cool man...thx for the info. I'm a documentary nut.

Check out the most recent one posted by Dark on the Dirt The Movie thread in Organic Soil; You too Grapeman.

 

[grapeman]

Grapeman, now deep down you know that just is not true. You, like many farmers have bought the story sold by the fertilizer manufacturers/sellers hook line and sinker. There is much evidence/proof/(produce) now which demonstrates that naturally grown produce can equal or surpass yields grown with manufactured ionic form fertilizers.

Are you going to tell me that human cognition is so stunted that we can figure out how to capture and bag atmospheric nitrogen but we cannot figure out how to harness and employ the natural growing which occurrs in a redwood (pick a tree) forest?; in a forest there is usually a miniscule amount of soil compared to a corn or wheat field and the amount of mass created each growing season in 'the forest' far surpasses that of the corn or wheat field. Who fertilized the redwoods?

?
AS much as I enjoy my hobby here, the fact is there is not one organic grape grower that can match our yields or quality. If they claim otherwise, they would just be flat out lying. At best, they may grow 2/3 of our crop. If there wasn't a whole foods chain, they would be out of business. Most folks have figured out that they don't want to pay more for the same fruit just because it says "organic". And the organic business is flat. It's about 2% of our acreage.
Non-organic business is growing. As in this hobby, the taste of fruit has much to do with genetics (varieties). But everyone grows identical genetics as all vines came from the same mother. So organic growers grow the same varieties as all others. It all tastes the same depending upon brix and how long you leave the fruit hang on the vine. Organics have nothing to do with it.

BTW, roundup is not as widely used as it was in the 70's and 80's. At least in my neck of the woods. But it still has it's place in proper management.

 

[norbyhaze]

man, i disagree hwith u. how can u tell that aobut grapes and wine? i do wine, i have a 30000 meters field full of albariño vines and a few more varieties, there come from ancient times end when u taste them u can see the diferences in betwen, so....
And there´s more, because no one vine grower would let the plants to get the maximum yield, cause the fruit loses flavor, and cause it makes the vine´s life shorter.

 

[Mountain]

Most folks have figured out that they don't want to pay more for the same fruit just because it says "organic". And the organic business is flat.

Less than 6 months ago a friend in a different field was talking about this and said he was noticing a drop in organic sales and attributed it to the economy. People were telling him they were not willing to pay the extra cost as a means to save money.

I still can't get past Dr. Huber's info that at his claimed half life glyphosate accumulates with yearly applications. Honestly if there was zero left in the soil after a year I'd look at things a bit differently.

As for the yields I mentioned they do not come easily or overnight nor is the program simple. We're talking Fall soil test, create then apply program, Summer tissue analysis, yield review, fine tune program then repeat. My main point was well arranged organic programs are viable to support high levels of production. Each crop is different though and am guessing the difference in production with something like apples, organic vs not, wouldn't be significantly different. Bruce Tainio had an interesting story though when he was working with an apple grower...the apples became too big for his Japanese customer..lol.

 

[Microbeman]

?
AS much as I enjoy my hobby here, the fact is there is not one organic grape grower that can match our yields or quality. If they claim otherwise, they would just be flat out lying. At best, they may grow 2/3 of our crop. If there wasn't a whole foods chain, they would be out of business. Most folks have figured out that they don't want to pay more for the same fruit just because it says "organic". And the organic business is flat. It's about 2% of our acreage.
Non-organic business is growing. As in this hobby, the taste of fruit has much to do with genetics (varieties). But everyone grows identical genetics as all vines came from the same mother. So organic growers grow the same varieties as all others. It all tastes the same depending upon brix and how long you leave the fruit hang on the vine. Organics have nothing to do with it.

BTW, roundup is not as widely used as it was in the 70's and 80's. At least in my neck of the woods. But it still has it's place in proper management.

Organic grape horticulture is growing in leaps and bounds in the Okanagan Valley, a big grape growing/wine producing area in BC. I believe one large estate which produces organic wine just bought up a couple of conventional farms. I know of one season when the conventional growers had much more trouble with powdery mildew than the organic growers but yuck, who wants to eat grapes or drink wine with fungicides; hurrll! I don't profess to knowing much about wine making but boy, do I like the organic stuff better.