Posted on 05/10/2010 9:25:54 AM PDT by Scythian
What would happen if a USDA scientist discovered that one of the most commonly used pesticides on the planet with a reputation for having saved millions of tons of US soil from erosion was -- rather than a soil savior -- a soil killer?
That, to quote a certain paranormal expert, would be bad. And yet, it's true.
This news came to the fore thanks to a recently published must-read article from Reuters on how government regulators are dropping the ball on agricultural biotechnology. It begins with the story of USDA scientist Dr. Robert Kremer. Kremer has spent the last fifteen years looking at Monsanto's blockbuster broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate (aka RoundUp), the most commonly used pesticide in the world and the companion to Monsantos possibly monopolistic RoundupReady lines of genetically engineered seeds.
(Excerpt) Read more at grist.org ...
USDA — this is one group that belongs on that list of communist-inspired US agencies that popped up on a thread last week.
ping
Roundup is a very benign substance.
Words spoken by someone who never set foot in a field or garden and doesn't understand what weeds will do to crop yields.
Food Inc, the documentary is a worthwhile view for the section on Monsanto - a total takeover of agriculture through strong armed abuse of the legal system. These guys just crush family farmers with dubious lawsuits alleging patent infringement when their GMO crap cross-pollinates with other non-GMO crops.
It’s an ugly scene and the cartels should be broken up under RICO or antitrust.
>What would happen if a USDA scientist discovered that one of the most commonly used pesticides on the planet with a reputation for having saved millions of tons of US soil from erosion was — rather than a soil savior — a soil killer?
And when DHT was doing wonderfully, despite Silent Spring’s concern... government is consistent in one thing: making what they are involved in more complex than it needs to be (that alone should be enough an argument for small government).
DDT, not DHT.
Natural selection at work; how do people think the Roundup crop varieties were created in the first place? The plant breeders used Roundup to select for plants that would survive Roundup.
A rotation of other herbicides was always the plan to break Roundup resistance.
Roundup has allowed the use of no till and other forms of reduced tillage.
The loss of our nations soil dwarfs every other agricultural issue.
Have you every seen a no till field after a heavy rain? It has almost the same soil loss as your lawn.
Compare that to a tilled field after that same heavy rain. You will see large gullies and other indications of heavy soil erosion.
That looks like a picture of most of the organic fields I have seen.
They are always a mess.
I agree 100%!!
Uh, In a lab with a gene gun ?
LOL, pretty much the state of 98% of Americans farm knowledge. Every domesticated animal and plant is genetically modifed. It's what humans have been doing for eons, selectively breeding. It's okay for organic farmers to selectively save the seed from their best plants, but if a corporation does the same thing on a commercial scale, it's evil and will kill us all.
No, it's their GMO pollen that is blowing around, raping non-GMO plants. Keep that pollen at home and this won't happen.
He would be so despondent that he would commit herbicide. However, he would probably fail, and instead become a vegetable.
Actually, it was in a lab with a “gene gun”. The same with BT crops. Both genes, the herbicide-resistance one and the pesticide-producing one, were inserted with a bacterial “gene gun” that shot the exogenous DNA into the plant cells.
>>how do people think the Roundup crop varieties
>>were created in the first place?
Detasseling, a Midwest Rite Of Passage, Faces Extinction
http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Detasseling-Faces-Extinction9aug02.htm
Been there... did that.
The author of this article apparently is unaware that Roundup is not applied aerially.
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