RE: Switching to sustainable

Hal Hamilton (hhamilton@centerss.org)
Wed, 3 Mar 1999 07:59:36 -0500

I farmed for 15 years myself, used some herbicides on no-till corn, and
sometimes sprayed for alfalfa weavil when the parasitic wasps weren't active
enough to avoid losing the stand. I've been terribly ill from spilling
Lasso on my boot and from inhaling Furadan when I turned at the end of the
row in the alfalfa field. I don't know a full-time non-organic farmer who
hasn't gotten sick from pesticides some time. More than one of my neighbors
were found by their wives collapsed in their machine shed at the end of the
day. When you're trying to make a living, however, and when you don't know
how else to avoid losing your field of alfalfa, or when you don't know how
else to raise corn silage without losing soil from erosion, you get stuck
with these damned poisons. Hal

Hal Hamilton
Center for Sustainable Systems
433 Chestnut St., Berea KY 40403 USA
Phone: (606) 986-5336; Fax: (606) 986-1299
hhamilton@centerss.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Hook [mailto:guldann@ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 1999 9:12 PM
> To: Hal Hamilton; Bob MacGregor; sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
> Subject: Re: Switching to sustainable
>
>
>
> Hal wrote:
>
> >This issue of incentives for innovation is a good topic to explore. 30%
> >sounds high to me. There are a host of factors, however, in addition to
> >money. Sometimes cultural resistance to "wierd new methods" is strong
> >enough to counteract even highly profitable innovations. Sometimes the
> >inclination to be an "early adopter" leads a former chemical junkie to be
> >the first to adopt IPM or other "sustainable" BMPs. What's the research
> >say? Hal
> >
> >Hal Hamilton
> >Center for Sustainable Systems
> >433 Chestnut St., Berea KY 40403 USA
> >Phone: (606) 986-5336; Fax: (606) 986-1299
> >hhamilton@centerss.org
> >
> Reading this thread and having read the Consumer's Unions report on the
> peticides in food I got wondering, conventinal farmers expose
> themselves to
> high amounts of chemicals the spraying and living close to the fields etc.
> I would suspect there is a high incidence of illness ie cancer in the
> farming (large) sector. Is this so? Would/could this contribute, has it
> contributed to a change to more sustainable growing? Beth
>
>

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