Hi Dave,
Monday, March 06, 2000, 12:12:58 AM, you wrote what appears to be a
justification of GMOs, as a logical logical and perhaps even
appropriate reaction to the problems facing conventional farmers who
currently depend on an agricultural production system that fails to
take into account the interdependent nature of the ecosystem in which
agricultural (a biological activity involving organisms that evolved
over many, many millenniums) occurs.
In short: A shallow, unenlightened and oversimplified, bits and pieces
approach to agriculture that excludes the need for understanding the
life cycles of all the organisms involved and the interrelationships
that do (or could be made to) apply; an approach that concentrates
instead on the use of concentrated synthetic, toxic non-biological
commodities that interfere rather than integrate with (thus taking
advantage of) the web of biological activity that occurs (or could be
made to occur) in an agricultural production system that DOES view
agriculture as a biological activity in itself (within the context of
a greater field of present or potentially present living
participants); might just do something as absurd (and do it
consistently and logically, given it's own deficient premises) as
developing GMO commodities to complement the proprietary range of
concentrated synthetic, toxic non-biological commodities they already
sell.
That was all one sentence and contains a basis for understanding my
views in a nutshell. Unfortunately, I fear that those who don't
understand it or fail to take it to heart are beyond my reach at this
time and will have to reached through other concrete (less conceptual)
means, in a future that some of are busy constructing.
I would be interested in knowing how many others here on this list
share (or don't share) my point of view (which obviously can be
expanded on more explicitly).
Douglas
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
DM> ================================================
DM> Source: http://www.purefood.org/ge/playinggd.htm
DM> ================================================
DM> This also helps explain monocropping in a GE dependent world.
DM> Please read it with a more open mind than usual. We never fully
DM> understand until we explore, I am trying - DAVE
DM> ------
DM> Michael Pollan wrote a very thought-provoking article called "Playing
DM> God in the Garden" which you can find in the October 25, 1998 issue
DM> of The New York Times Magazine. In his own wonderful meandering way
DM> he discusses the New Leaf Superior potatoes (which contain Bt) he has
DM> obtained from Monsanto, planting them in his garden, watching them
DM> grow, and finally making the decision about whether or not to eat his
DM> harvest. In between he interviews representatives from the EPA,
DM> Monsanto, a Harvard geneticist, a conventional potato farmer, an
DM> organic potato farmer, as well as other pertinent people to help him
DM> make up his mind. It's great "food for thought" and may help you
DM> think through the controversy. Personally, I want to have the choice
DM> not to fill my body with a pesticide which is what Bt is, safe or
DM> not. I also choose to drive a car, choose not to take most
DM> medicines--that's what makes me hysterical, when my choice is taken
DM> away.
DM> {FYI, I have pulled out just one interviewed portion Michael wrote:}
DM> Danny Forsyth laid out the dismal economics of potato farming for me one
DM> sweltering morning at the coffee shop in downtown Jerome, Idaho.
DM> Forsyth,
DM> 60, is a slight blue-eyed man with a small gray ponytail; he farms 3,000
DM> acres of potatoes, corn and wheat, and he spoke about agricultural
DM> chemicals like a man desperate to kick a bad habit. "None of us would
DM> use
DM> them if we had any choice," he said glumly.
DM> I asked him to walk me through a season's regimen. It typically begins
DM> early in the spring with a soil fumigant; to control nematodes, many
DM> potato farmers douse their fields with a chemical toxic enough to kill
DM> every trace of microbial life in the soil. Then, at planting, a systemic
DM> insecticide (like Thimet) is applied to the soil; this will be absorbed
DM> by the young seedlings and, for several weeks, will kill any insect that
DM> eats their leaves. After planting, Forsyth puts down an herbicide --
DM> Sencor or Eptam -- to "clean" his field of all weeds. When the potato
DM> seedlings are six inches tall, an herbicide may be sprayed a second time
DM> to control weeds.
DM> Idaho farmers like Forsyth farm in vast circles defined by the rotation
DM> of a pivot irrigation system, typically 135 acres to a circle; I'd seen
DM> them from 30,000 feet flying in, a grid of verdant green coins pressed
DM> into a desert of scrubby brown. Pesticides and fertilizers are simply
DM> added to the irrigation system, which on Forsyth's farm draws most of
DM> its
DM> water from the nearby Snake River. Along with their water, Forsyth's
DM> potatoes may receive 10 applications of chemical fertilizer during the
DM> growing season. Just before the rows close -- when the leaves of one row
DM> of plants meet those of the next -- he begins spraying Bravo, a
DM> fungicide, to control late blight, one of the biggest threats to the
DM> potato crop. (Late blight, which caused the Irish potato famine, is an
DM> airborne fungus that turns stored potatoes into rotting mush.) Blight is
DM> such a serious problem that the E.P.A. currently allows farmers to spray
DM> powerful fungicides that haven't passed the usual approval process.
DM> Forsyth's potatoes will receive eight applications of fungicide.
DM> Twice each summer, Forsyth hires a crop duster to spray for aphids.
DM> Aphids are harmless in themselves, but they transmit the leafroll virus,
DM> which in Russet Burbank potatoes causes net necrosis, a brown spotting
DM> that will cause a processor to reject a whole crop. It happened to
DM> Forsyth last year. "I lost 80,000 bags" -- they're a hundred pounds each
DM> -- "to net necrosis," he said. "Instead of getting $4.95 a bag, I had to
DM> take $2 a bag from the dehydrator, and I was lucky to get that." Net
DM> necrosis is a purely cosmetic defect; yet because big buyers like
DM> McDonald's believe (with good reason) that we don't like to see brown
DM> spots in our fries, farmers like Danny Forsyth must spray their fields
DM> with some of the most toxic chemicals in use, including an
DM> organophosphate called Monitor.
DM> "Monitor is a deadly chemical," Forsyth said. "I won't go into a field
DM> for four or five days after it's been sprayed -- even to fix a broken
DM> pivot." That is, he would sooner lose a whole circle to drought than
DM> expose himself or an employee to Monitor, which has been found to cause
DM> neurological damage.
DM> It's not hard to see why a farmer like Forsyth, struggling against tight
DM> margins and heartsick over chemicals, would leap at a New Leaf -- or...
DM> =======================================================================
DM> And so I ask if this is how a typical non-organic daily regimen of food
DM> exists, why are we so complacent? And why not be concerned of GM foods?
DM> Pesticides will never be a thing of the past unless we act accordingly.
DM> =======================================================================
DM> Source: http://www.purefood.org/ge/playinggd.htm
DM> Recycler Dave - passing it along...... Geez, eating can be hard (not)!
DM> Can you thankfully share your opinions and experiences, mostly other
DM> research as to what you feel works, will work and why?
DM> ====================
DM> recycler@eclipse.net
DM> ====================
DM> More Info:
DM> Campaign for Food Safety (formerly known as the Pure Food Campaign)
DM> 860 Highway 61, Little Marais, Minnesota 55614
DM> Activist or Media Inquiries: (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157
DM> Ronnie Cummins E-mail: alliance@mr.net http://www.purefood.org
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