I've read the article more thoroughly now, and I've got to admit that I don't understand most of it. Actually, that's one of the things I appreciate about it. Much as my instincts favor many of Pollan's ideas, I worry by the virtue of his good writing he's able to convince me of things that are not as cut and dry as they sound. Hurst demonstrates - effectively, I think - that agricultural issues are very complex. I don't know which side is "right," and chances are that there is no "right" side, but I fall squarely against arguments that seem to paint the issues in black and white terms.

I can keep sending you these until you cry uncle.

I don't think a 1986 article to a herbicide that is no longer marketed is relevant.

The herbicide used for no till burn down is glyphosate which is a chlorine and safe for man and animal. It breaks up immediately upon hitting the soil. So I'll cry "aunt." And question your use of this reference for this article.

tyrus wrote:Or just invest 2 hours of your time as see the movie Food Inc as the alternative view to big ag. It's basically a cliff's notes version of Pollan's books and Super Size Me rolled into a documentary. None of these are an end-all be-all from my perspective but they opened my eyes a little and made me think a little more about most of the issues addressed in this thread.

Wow! I actually invested the $8 watching that piece of propaganda. Had an independent producer prepared a documentary that even attempted to present both sides (ala the CBS Reports "Harvest of Shame" in 1960) of the issue, it would have been a lot more interesting and enlightening.

I will admit that the producer handled the subject with a deft hand so you almost had to be very sympathetic to the cause.

Personally, while it is romantic to think of the "good old days" when a farmer could support his family on 40-80 acres and live on the $10-20k that he would earn, I do not think that you are going to find too many people willing to work 60-80 hours per week for a subsistence income.

auxen1 wrote:

I can keep sending you these until you cry uncle.

I don't think a 1986 article to a herbicide that is no longer marketed is relevant.

[/quote]

I think it's perfectly relevant. I wasn't accusing Mr. Hurst of using said herbicide, but rather illustrating a point that he didn't say much about his new no-till practices other than to essentially say, "they're good because I say so". If he doesn't tell us much about his no-till practices other than the fact that they're better than his old practices. I don't know when he started using herbicides or what he was using. It could have been in 1986 for all we know.

My point is that I don't just accept "this is better because I say so".

There are debates about the safety of glyphosate out there and Monsanto has (more than once) been caught falsifying RoundUp lab results.

I'm not saying that his practices are dangerous or worse. On balance, I'm sure in this case they're better. But there are a ton of reasons out there why I shouldn't accept someone telling me that something is good when they're making money doing it. The 1986 study is just one in a long chain of "things we found out later".

jimswside wrote:After work I am going to buy a bubble to live in, throw away my smokers, stop eating meat, and start shopping at Whole Foods, and Green City Market.

Even people in bubbles like meat.

The question that occurs to me is that, if medium sized farms are, on the whole, shutting down, and people are leaving the farming profession, what do we do for food if there are no big farms? This is not meant to be sarcastic -- it's a real concern. If we don't have a LOT of farmers, we can't have enough small farms to feed the population.

Also, not only do people on the whole not want to work on farms, they don't want to be around farms. I went on a tour of four medium-sized farms recently, and the farmers at the pig farm said that they had to stay pretty far out because no one wanted to see pigs -- or smell them. He said there was a real bias against having pigs around in society as a whole, even among people who loved eating pork. (He did add that the biggest advantage to having all the pigs together was that the waste could all be collected, processed, and then used as fertilizer by surrounding farms, thus reducing the need for eliminating the waste and the need for chemical fertilizers.)

So as much as I'd prefer going back to a largely agricultural country, I don't see it happening on too widespread a scale because we don't have enough farmers. That, and we've put up housing developments on a huge amount of the most fertile farmland.

It doesn't mean we can't try to improve things, but on the whole, huge cities like Chicago are not being fed by small farms.

I think it's perfectly relevant. I wasn't accusing Mr. Hurst of using said herbicide, but rather illustrating a point that he didn't say much about his new no-till practices other than to essentially say, "they're good because I say so". If he doesn't tell us much about his no-till practices other than the fact that they're better than his old practices. I don't know when he started using herbicides or what he was using. It could have been in 1986 for all we know.

My point is that I don't just accept "this is better because I say so".

There are debates about the safety of glyphosate out there and Monsanto has (more than once) been caught falsifying RoundUp lab results.

I'm not saying that his practices are dangerous or worse. On balance, I'm sure in this case they're better. But there are a ton of reasons out there why I shouldn't accept someone telling me that something is good when they're making money doing it. The 1986 study is just one in a long chain of "things we found out later".

I'd love for some other farmers to post what herbicides, other than glyphosate are used for no till. And I'm sorry but I don't get the point.

I'd also love for any links to any credible third party source supporting the inference that glyphosate is unsafe. While you're at it, send a link (credible third party source) on the falsification of RoundUp lab results. I'd like that for my files.

And do I follow your logic in understanding that a farmer not making is to be believed more than a farmer who is making money? Could you explain this?

auxen1 wrote:I'd also love for any links to any credible third party source supporting the inference that glyphosate is unsafe.

"Recent reports demonstrate that many currently used pesticides have the capacity to disrupt reproductive function in animals."
Roundup inhibits steroidogenesis by disrupting steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) protein expression.

"Due to the presence of a
toxic inert ingredient, some glyphosate end-use products must be labeled,
"Toxic to fish," if they may be applied directly to aquatic environments.
Product labeling does not preclude off-target movement of glyphosate by
drift."
http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/factsh ... 78fact.pdf

The EU classifies Roundup toxic to fish and may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment. I'll get back to you on the documentation here.

auxen1 wrote:While you're at it, send a link (credible third party source) on the falsification of RoundUp lab results. I'd like that for my files.

All reports of this reference the following documents that are not available online as far as I can tell. There are a number of stories about it, and they all point to the EPA statements from these documents. It broke in the early 90s and it was big news at the time:

(US EPA Communications and Public Affairs 1991 Note to correspondents Washington DC Mar 1)
(US EPA Communications and Public Affairs 1991 Press Advisory. EPA lists crops associated with pesticides for which residue and environmental fate studies were allegedly manipulated. Washington DC Mar 29)
(U.S. Congress. House of Representatives. Com. on Gov. Oper. 1984. Problems palgue the EPA pesticide registration activities. House Report 98-1147)
(U.S. EPA 1978 Data validation. Memo from K LOcke, Toxicology Branch, to R Taylor, Registration Branch. Washington DC Aug 9)
(U.S. EPA Office of pesticides and Toxic Substances 1983, Summary of the IBT review program. Washington D.C. July)

auxen1 wrote:And do I follow your logic in understanding that a farmer not making is to be believed more than a farmer who is making money? Could you explain this?

No you do not follow my logic at all. I am saying, as I have said earlier in this thread, that Mr. Hurst has a profit motive in protecting his practices (in fact, he says that he doesn't want to change things unless "consumers force his hand") and he's fighting to protect his business practices (as well he should). I don't take any editorial facts on faith, if I agree with them or not, and that was my point in presenting the results of a study. EDIT: I also consider the publishers of the piece, the AEI, who are not exactly known to be an even-handed, fact-driven, scientific organization.

Again, I am not saying that Mr. Hurst is a bad farmer or harmful in any way. I just found his piece to be odd at times, attacking arguments that were never made and making points rather superficially without expanding them. I appreciate your education on the no-till/glyphosate use and I would have liked him to expand on it in his piece. He could have added one sentence that identified the safety of herbicides used and how they do not wind up downriver (the same place that his topsoil went). Jim said he learned something about the no-till thing, and I appreciate that. It left me with more questions, like "but where do the herbicides go? After all, it can be considered toxic to fish."

If he wrote a book about these issues, I'd read it.

Best,
Michael

Cynthia wrote:The question that occurs to me is that, if medium sized farms are, on the whole, shutting down, and people are leaving the farming profession, what do we do for food if there are no big farms? This is not meant to be sarcastic -- it's a real concern. If we don't have a LOT of farmers, we can't have enough small farms to feed the population.

Cynthia,

Who is advocating for an abolishment of all large farms? Again, this is the same path we wind up going down in locavore debates. People advocating for something different than the status quo are painted as radicals who want to completely turn the world upside down.

There are writers advocating for a more diverse agricultural system or one that uses less fossil fuels or one that uses fewer synthetic chemicals or one that values freshness of produce over ship-ability or one that better respects the life of animals. I'm not sure I've heard anyone say "we need to shut down all large farms and return to a completely small-scale agrarian society".

Best,
Michael

I gave a presentation at the National Communication Association mtg in Chicago several years ago on Roundup (one of many glyphosphate instances), analyizing the rhetorical ploys used by both sides in the argument pro and con. (This was during a session on rhetoric of science.)

For the most part, neither side can be trusted as far as you can throw them.

But, as a result of my reasonably thorough (at the time), literature survey, I came to the conclusion that, when *used according to the label*, glyphosphate was as safe as any herbicide was going to get. Which does NOT mean it doesn't have issues; merely that, for a reasonable person acting reasonably, it would be reasonable to use glyphosphate according to the label, if/when the need was clear.

And I do, from time-to-time, use it in my vineyard. Grapes tolerate correctly used glyphosphate, whereas they are deathly sensitive to that dangerous stuff 2,4, D and all its phenoxy ilk (e.g., 2,4, 5 T). I have classmates who served under (literally) Agent Orange in 'Nam, and unless and until the connections between their illnesses, Agent Orange, and the 2,4 D ingredients are carefully enough figured out, I argue against the stuff. Be gone weed-b-gon.

Just my 2¢.

Geo

Vital,

Thanks for your links. I really don't want to get into the position of defending glyphosate or the companies that manufacture it but I've heard the rhetoric that Geo cited before. In regards to glyphosate being dangerous, your links don't do anything for me. All chemicals have to be labeled by law. And I have to agree with Geo that glyphosate is the safest herbicide out there. Let me repeat my post on a separate topic: I'm all for eliminating as many chemicals as possible.

The point of no till is that it minimizes runoff. When soil is tilled and it rains, the soil itself carries the chemicals and fertilizer into the rivers and streams. When the soil doesn't move, the chemicals sit there and break down. And it takes 100 years for an inch of top soil to be produced. So sitting there is a good thing.

In your earlier post you suggested that lab studies were fudged. I can't read your sources but it looks like it relates to regulatory filings and not lab results. Lab studies being fudged I'd want to know about, which is not making an excuse for messing with reg. filings.

You take the trouble to post on the U.K. and its regulation of glyphosate. That's a fishing expedition on this chemistry or just about any sythetic chemical...or just about any ag technology. The U.K. regulatory environment is dysfunctional and politicized and any action against any U.S. company has to be vetted for trade strategy. It's unfortunate because the U.K. hurst itself the worst.

Let me agree that Hurst's piece was a bit superficial and glossed over many things. But I read it as heartfelt and there was good content there as well. Similar to Pollan's writing in both respects.

auxen1 wrote:Vital,

Thanks for your links. I really don't want to get into the position of defending glyphosate or the companies that manufacture it but I've heard the rhetoric that Geo cited before. In regards to glyphosate being dangerous, your links don't do anything for me. All chemicals have to be labeled by law. And I have to agree with Geo that glyphosate is the safest herbicide out there. Let me repeat my post on a separate topic: I'm all for eliminating as many chemicals as possible.

The point of no till is that it minimizes runoff. When soil is tilled and it rains, the soil itself carries the chemicals and fertilizer into the rivers and streams. When the soil doesn't move, the chemicals sit there and break down. And it takes 100 years for an inch of top soil to be produced. So sitting there is a good thing.

In your earlier post you suggested that lab studies were fudged. I can't read your sources but it looks like it relates to regulatory filings and not lab results. Lab studies being fudged I'd want to know about, which is not making an excuse for messing with reg. filings.

You take the trouble to post on the U.K. and its regulation of glyphosate. That's a fishing expedition on this chemistry or just about any sythetic chemical...or just about any ag technology. The U.K. regulatory environment is dysfunctional and politicized and any action against any U.S. company has to be vetted for trade strategy. It's unfortunate because the U.K. hurst itself the worst.

Let me agree that Hurst's piece was a bit superficial and glossed over many things. But I read it as heartfelt and there was good content there as well. Similar to Pollan's writing in both respects.

(I think you meant "Michael" not "Vital")

...and I don't want to be in the position of attacking them or digging up more research --unless you're willing to hire me as a research assistant The story on false lab data--not regulatory filings--is out there. People went to jail if I remember correctly and Monsanto did big media work to repair their image (it was from contracted industrial labs, I believe, not internal corporate labs). What I listed are the best references I could find that meet the "credible third party" criteria.

I'm sorry my links don't do anything for you. I wasn't trying to persuade, only satisfy your request. Ultimately, I feel like we're starting to drag each other away from valuable discussion.

On reflection, I can best sum my point of linking to the original 1986 herbicide study like this:

1) AEI editorial, to a layman like myself, paints with a broad brush and gives the reader the impression "herbicides = good benefit to all, not using herbicides = bad". The bold sidebar calls out that only herbicides could have saved the world from the biggest harm he was doing to the environment.

2) So, I flippantly tried to say with my link "I'm skeptical of cheerleading chemical usage. Chemicals are good only until we find out that they're not. Which, we often do. Here's an example." By not making any concession to an overall desire to eliminate synthetic chemicals, his statements looked like boosterism and cheerleading to me. I could have made this point better. I fear that you read it as "Mr. Hurst is giving us cancer".

Nevertheless, we agree on a number of things, I'm all for eliminating as many chemicals as possible as well. Mr. Hurst puts up some good content and adds to a valuable debate. I'd enjoy seeing him debate Mr. Pollan. As with most political issues, the practical, realistic solution lies somewhere in the middle and can get easily overshadowed when one side demonizes the other.

Good night,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:

Cynthia wrote:The question that occurs to me is that, if medium sized farms are, on the whole, shutting down, and people are leaving the farming profession, what do we do for food if there are no big farms? This is not meant to be sarcastic -- it's a real concern. If we don't have a LOT of farmers, we can't have enough small farms to feed the population.

Cynthia,

Who is advocating for an abolishment of all large farms? Again, this is the same path we wind up going down in locavore debates. People advocating for something different than the status quo are painted as radicals who want to completely turn the world upside down.

There are writers advocating for a more diverse agricultural system or one that uses less fossil fuels or one that uses fewer synthetic chemicals or one that values freshness of produce over ship-ability or one that better respects the life of animals. I'm not sure I've heard anyone say "we need to shut down all large farms and return to a completely small-scale agrarian society".

Best,
Michael

I certainly didn't think you were suggesting the abolition of large farms, Michael. One often brings to these discussions the weight of other discussions in which one has participated, and there is enough demonizing of all large-scale farming among some acquaintances, and some elements of the media, that I was reacting more to the extreme debate than to the well-reasoned issues you always raise. As I said, we certainly want to improve things. I dutifully (and happily) go to my local farmers market. I buy organic when I can (though in a cripplingly slow economic year like this one, that is generally less often than I'd like). I also know farmers -- really nice people who do all they can to make things as wholesome as possible, who give back to the community, who care for their animals -- from larger (though by no means giant) farms who are concerned about the negative press they're getting -- which, in some areas, is leading to local governments trying to fix things that aren't broken, which increases work and expenses for the farmers and makes it harder for these farmers to survive. (Because face it, government usually gets it wrong when they step into these kinds of issues, as they go for the hot button.)

So my comment was really aimed at a much bigger discussion, and was anchored in the fears of farmers facing the equivalent of the anti-foie gras mentality.

Michael,

Thanks for your reply. Did not mean to be dismissive in responding to your links. With any ag chemical or drug the regulatory process is monumental and so the filings and rulings are christmas catalogue like, especially with on ethat's been around awhile. I didn't see anything remarkable in your links that set a lot of bells off. I understand glyphosate to be fairly safe and so the need to doctor information would seem nonsensical. I don't think its off topic to discuss because many times scratching the surface on these issues is all it takes shed some light on urban/ag myths.

Your summary makes good points. Let me expand on the herbicides = good/bad. All agriculture is bad for the environment...including organic. Farmers like Mr. Hurst are focused on how to sustain their growing environment so that their kids will have the choice of farming or not farming. Replacing persistent and highly toxic pesticides with relatively benign pesticides is a good thing. Taking the total amount of pesticides sprayed each year down is another good thing. And this is happening in the U.S. within conventional agriculure. Pesticides allow, in some areas, for more sustainable farming practices than organic production allows. It would be great if we didn't need pesticides.

There's a real discussion to be had around whether we should be trying to support as much life as we are on this planet, a topic Hurst touched on, but maybe not for this forum.

I did see some months ago Pollan debate an executive from Monsanto. Pollan came off as not answering the questions, elitist and arrogant. He's a smart guy and writes beautifuly, but what he's doing isn't going to solve any food production problems.

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.

Cynthia wrote:The question that occurs to me is that, if medium sized farms are, on the whole, shutting down, and people are leaving the farming profession, what do we do for food if there are no big farms? This is not meant to be sarcastic -- it's a real concern. If we don't have a LOT of farmers, we can't have enough small farms to feed the population.

As the FIL is a farmer, I have spent year reading ALL of the ag magazines, titles like "Midwest Farmer", "Ohio Farmer" and the like. There is one characteristic that you see when you read the magazines and attend the events. Most US farmers are over 55 years old. In other words, over half the farmers today will be gone in thirty years. I see relatively few of their children taking over the operations. After all, who wants to worh THAT hard for a small income, have to pay for the medical insurance and the like.

[quote="Cynthia"]Also, not only do people on the whole not want to work on farms, they don't want to be around farms. I went on a tour of four medium-sized farms recently, and the farmers at the pig farm said that they had to stay pretty far out because no one wanted to see pigs -- or smell them. He said there was a real bias against having pigs around in society as a whole, even among people who loved eating pork. [quote]

There are two issues there. First, as suburbia takes over farm land, the city folk want to start dictating the practices of the farmers. The farmer wants to spread the manure over his fields to save on disposal costs and fertilizer costs. However, there is some smell involved for 2-3 days after application. And let me tell you, it is not just pigs but small dairy operations. Second, as homes take over, the farmer has less land to rent for crops.

The real kicker to this loss of farms is that, inevitably, new housing takes some of the best farmland. So the cities sprawl and sprawl and sprawl, causing at the same time the loss of high-value farmland. Talk about your double evil...

Geo

Geo wrote:The real kicker to this loss of farms is that, inevitably, new housing takes some of the best farmland. So the cities sprawl and sprawl and sprawl, causing at the same time the loss of high-value farmland. Talk about your double evil...

Geo

there are things some rural/exurb communities are doing. Out where I live farmers are sigining 25+ year leases with wind farm operators which allows them to keep farmland in use, and in place instead of housing and strip malls moving in.

THings can be done, and I dont blame folks who dont want to live in the city, but need to live close enough for good jobs & other sevices( I am one of them, I moved out to a rural area because I didnt want to live in Naperville where I grew up, and I can say I will probably never live in Chicago or any other large city(not a fan of overcrowding, pollution, and crime) if I can help it.

I just saw this forum and thought that I would give my own anecdotal perspective. As a farmer, I think that a middle ground approach is almost always the most effective. I farm what most of my urban friends think of as an "industrial farm." My father, brother-in-law, and myself work our land that's been in our family for 5 generations. We've utilized no-till techniques for almost 20 years now, and I have to say that Blake Hurst's article was a much-needed alternative opinion Pollan. I think that Pollan makes good points in his writing, but he vastly over-simplifies agriculture and global ag-economics. As for the sustainability of so-called "modern" techniques, no-till has enabled us to cut our diesel fuel usage by two-thirds. My grandfather was an organic farmer (didn't have that term for it then) and all of our topsoil washed into the local creeks as a result of plowing. We use non-residual, contact herbicides (glyphosate, among others) to facilitate no-till. We sequester carbon in our soil as organic matter rather than releasing it into the air every time we plow. After almost a hundred years of plowing and soil erosion, we have been slowly trying to build up our soil again. In this manner we maintain habitat for beneficial insects and soil micro-organisms.
Hurst also makes good comments about soil fertility. We use as much local manure as available and harrow our pastures to utilize the manure that is out there, but you still need to put fertilizer on your crops. Soybeans are in our rotation scheme, but they only add about a third of the necessary nitrogen to the ground. We use GPS on our tractors to determine how to most efficiently spread fertilizer. By building up our topsoil, we are increasing our land's ability to actually hold onto and utilize the nutrients that we add. Furthermore, a corn rotation puts more organic matter back into the ground than any of our other crops. As the roots and biomass from corn rots, we can build up our organic matter. The root channels act as a below-ground aeration tool and create a better soil structure.
In regard to other technology such as GM crops, I know that's a minefield of controversy. However, as a farmer I can tell you that use almost no pesticides and conserve our beneficial insects as a result of GM crops. We lost our entire crop to boll worms 15 years ago (and would have lost our home and farm if we did not have such an understanding banker). When you stand in a field and see your livelihood reduced to stalks and stems, you definitely realize the benefit of "modern" technology.
The techniques I am writing about are common throughout the country, but they are not written about very often and many non-farmers are not aware of them. I could keep going on, but I'm sure other people have their opinions too. There is a place for both organic and conventional agriculture, and there is no one method that is applicable to all situations. There is a vast range of ecological and biological differences among the different regions of this country. Farming techniques have to be adapted to what is most suitable for your specific area. Blake Hurst is correct when he writes that farming is messy, bloody, and painful. It certainly is, which is part of the beauty of it. Just because I have a tractor instead of a mule and use modern techniques does not mean that my land is not like my child. I am just as connected to our farm as my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before me.

great post containing alot of info, and insight.

thank you for posting

Al Farmer... well written. Good to hear from your perspective. Thank you!

There are two issues there. First, as suburbia takes over farm land, the city folk want to start dictating the practices of the farmers. The farmer wants to spread the manure over his fields to save on disposal costs and fertilizer costs. However, there is some smell involved for 2-3 days after application. And let me tell you, it is not just pigs but small dairy operations. Second, as homes take over, the farmer has less land to rent for crops.

It's important for the die hard organic advocates to recognize the the amount of arable land is finite. Urban sprawl (from memory) has gobbled up more than 40 milion farm acres since world war II....at the same time the population has much more than doubled. Far less acress (15 - 20 percent less) are asked to produce far more food.

And so representing that some of the the food production practices that LTHrs including myself love so much for the products they deliver can take care of our food needs is patently rediculous. They are a luxury and we need to recognized that from a relative perspective we're rich and don't live or eat like the rest of the world.

Getting on this and other forums to proseletize (sp), that the only way is the organic is dangerous. Legislators are growing up in an affluent foodie culture, going to state capitals and washington d.c. and attempting to pass legislation that they don't know jack shit about.

AL Farmer, looks to me like you're growing some cotton. Two questions, what type of a cotton industry would exist in the U.S. without Bt cotton? And, by how many applications have you reduced the number of pesticide applications since the introduction of Bt cotton.

Ok, a third. Can you comment on the sustainability of organic cotton?

Thanks Aaron for posting this article. The article and this thread are very interesting. As I've read Pollan and others with similar viewpoints, I've wanted to go along with them, but always had a bit of doubt about how extensible some of their suggestions really are. It's good to be able to hear the other side of the argument as well. (A special thanks to AL farmer for chiming in.) I'm still trying to decide what I think about all this and where I fit on the spectrum from "we should farm like cavemen" to "why does this pesky nature things keep butting into my farming". The middle is a pretty large place; there must be an answer (or several) in there somewhere.

auxen1,
I can only give you anecdotal answers to your questions. I would love to cite some specific resources, but I don't have much time at the moment. The websites of any of the agriculture universities (we attribute many of our farming practices to extension work coming out of Auburn and the University of Tennessee) can give more concrete explanations of Bt cotton.

As for your questions, I don't know any cotton farmers anymore that don't grow at least part of their crop as Bt. I know that there are farmers out there that plant only conventional seed, but the cotton industry widely embraced the Bt technology. We spray pesticides once, maybe twice a year now, and we spray for pests like plant bugs and stink bugs (the pesticides for these insects are not as harmful as chemicals used back in the 60's for boll weevil and other such pests). I have heard of some areas having to spray non-Bt crops up to 9 or 10 times. As I said though, that is only anecdotal evidence.

I think it's also notable that this technology is being used in developing countries. There is ongoing research in Uganda at the moment in regard to the use of Bt for the sweet potato weevil. Having been to Africa and talked to other farmers there, I can tell you that they have much more at stake than just their land or house. Starvation still lurks around the corner and I saw a heartbreaking number of malnourished children due to a poor crop in the preceding year.

As for the sustainability of organic cotton, I think it depends on the scale and the environment the crop is grown in. On a small scale with a lot of hand labor or plowing in areas with less risk of soil erosion (ie. flat ground), it probably works. I would love to visit an organic cotton farm to see some of their techniques. In our area, it's not feasible. I'm 32 years old and am probably of the last generation that spent their summer vacation walking up and down rows of cotton with a hoe in their hand. Even if we could find enough people to do that anymore, there is no way we could afford to provide a decent wage and health insurance to the sheer numbers of people that would be required for growing an organic crop on anything more than a small scale. Weeds can take over a crop in warmer climates within a week (I've seen this happen many many times). We would never go back to plowing or hand labor in order to transition to organic cotton production, even if we could afford to. Furthermore, how would we process it? There is one cotton gin in our area, and organic cotton would have to be kept away from "contaminated" conventional cotton during the ginning process. That is much easier said than done. I don't want to dismiss organic cotton, and I'm sure that it has a place in the appropriate environment. It is just not feasible (and I do not think sustainable) to grow all of the U.S. (or the world's) cotton crop in an organic manner.

Tnx ALfarmer for your interesting and useful comments.

But here's something that worries me. I grow grapes, and, from time-to-time use Bt (the actual bug, not a transgenic grape) bcz nothing is better against the grape berry moth, except some very strong pesticides whose residues I wouldn't want in my wine. Given such infrequent use, I don't worry at all about the bug population evolving resistance.

Evolved resistance has rendered some excellent new grape fungicides totally useless within several seasons. Researchers and growers are working together to develop schemes to delay ("delay" only: in the long run you can only delay evolution, not defeat it) resistance through fungicide rotation. It's complicated, but if it buys us a decade or so, that's A Good Thing.

Bug resistance to Bt-transgenic crops is inevitable, but perhaps it can be delayed in a useful fashion. What kinds of techniques are Bt-cotton growers using, and are they working?

Geo

As usual, I can turn to Tom Philpott to provide a little rinse to wash away the taste of Omnivore's Delusion.

Geo,
To answer your question about resistance, 2nd generation Bt has been around for awhile now and the development of 3rd generation Bt is in the works.

Because of the machinations of our cat, I spent the night in the Village of Oak Park instead of hitting the road towards Pittsburgh. Instead of going to sleep in a stupor of Barbeton lard, I ruminated over this thread. Why exactly is it delusional to want better food.

People like me do not choose to eat the way we eat simply because guys like Michael Pollan write a mean essay. We see around us, the growing waistlines of our kids fed on a diet of HFCS (and I'll sick one of my Local Beet co-editors on you if you want to hear even more the dangers of high fructose corn syrup). We see new strains of staph and flu believed to have been caused by confined animal feeding operations, and we see the collapse of bee colonies (which is a hell of a lot more serious than you might think it sounds) widely believed because of pesticides use. Mostly, we see ample documentation of the scars, the puddles and pools, the wreckage that modern agriculture can bring. We see the conditions for animals and humans and wonder why it has to be that way. And as foodies, we know every time we taste the good stuff, that we are making the right decisions in how we get our food.

We are told again and again, in this thread, by guys like Hurst, by the legions of Monsanto executives ready to hit the debate circuit, that we have to farm a certain way. Listen, I'm no Luddite. I've heard about things like the Irish potato famine, I know what happened to the lands of the South from traditional cotton farming. There are good and real reasons for doing things differently. It does not mean that they have to be done in the ways that are being defended.

Don't tell me it is the only way when I have walked the fields of certain farms in Illinois, and seen how they can do it. Don't tell me it is the only way when I have heard Will Allen and Erica Allen talk about their operations. Don't tell me that cows need to be housed in massive barns, denied pasture when I can still spend too much time driving around Wisconsin and see heard after heard of that oh-so productive black and white Holstein lolly about. There are other ways of farming, ways that produce food with less impacts.

Don't tell me that we need to farm a certain way because we cannot feed the people of Chicago. When you go to find muskmelons and peppers from Farmer Vicki's Genesis Growers and she has none, when the varied supplies of Harvest Moon, Green Acres, Henry's Farm lay bare, come talk to me. Ask a Wettstein comma Larry in Evanston or comma Dennis in Oak Park if he still has any beef, pork or lamb. Come back when the shelves of Whole Food no longer contain any Farmer's All Natural Creamery products or when their produce bins no longer have anything from Harmony Valley.

As you can easily see on the Local Beet, there are no shortages of farmer's markets, and we hear about more all the time. Still, when I ask the people from Phoenix where their lovely, organic, non-GMO tofu products can be had, besides the Andersonville market, I am given a list of stores and the general direction to also "go to Argyyle." Don't tell me we have to do it this way when Cassie and her Green Grocer don't. The Downtown Farmstand added an extra day to their schedule. When a whole organic Euro style market is very much moving forward in Chicago.

Don't tell me about disappearing land a week or so after I read of the tremendous opening of a food operation on Chicago's South side. It's not just Growing Home, it's Growing Power and Windy City Harvest and City Farm, making land arable where there was waste. Lest you think this just a city thing, go talk to Matt and his Sandhill Organic operation at the Oak Park market. Find out how he's doing it from land he rents in the middle of a spanking new development in Grayslake. Really! And if you still think this is for dilettantes, go find Floyd in the middle of effin' nowhere Illinois and see how he does it with the heros at AquaRanch. We can, literally, make the land we need.

It's not that both sides have good things to offer. Pick a side. I have said many a-time, the success of local food, slow food, real food, pro-food, what ever moniker we want, lies not in passing new legislations (although the law being signed next Tuesday sure helps), not in distribution systems and produce handling. It is not for task forces and ad hoc committees. Its success lies with us the consumer. Demand. Make demand. The price of organic food has dropped tremendously in 30 years. A guy like Hurst who has collected over a million dollars in government subsidies has an interest in keeping you tied to his way. Guys like me over at the Local Beet want you to move our way.

Vital,

I know your sentiments are sincere and so I truly don't want to come back at you in a way that polarizes what I think is a constructive exchange. But you know what Hemmingway said about Oak Park.

I agree with you that there are good and real reasons for doing things differently. There are also good and real reasons for doing things conventionally. There are also good and real reasons for making sure that we produce enough food for everyone to eat.

When I was a sophomore in high school we learned the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. Michael Pollan, Henry, Mr. Philpott and you suggest that we can take a "particular" and "generalize" it to world agriculture. Your thesis (unless you don't mind a lot more people dying) falls apart under its own weight.

I really wish your vision could work. But it can't.

And if you really believe...

Don't tell me about disappearing land a week or so after I read of the tremendous opening of a food operation on Chicago's South side. It's not just Growing Home, it's Growing Power and Windy City Harvest and City Farm, making land arable where there was waste. Lest you think this just a city thing, go talk to Matt and his Sandhill Organic operation at the Oak Park market. Find out how he's doing it from land he rents in the middle of a spanking new development in Grayslake. Really!

...then like owning a rubics cube for a year without solving it means you probably never will, you'll probably never understand the "why" with any sort of meaning.

But there's always a chance.

Perhaps reading up on Norman Borlaug's life's work might be educational.

auxen1 wrote:I really wish your vision could work. But it can't.

And if you really believe...

Oddly enough, your vision is not working very well, which as Michael pointed out very upthread, as not been well addressed by Monsanto and its defenders.

On top of that, my vision tastes a lot better. You should give it a try.

Vital,

your vision is not working very well,

Typically the people who respond this way in my profession are those that have embraced an almost religious like hate of production agriculture. When I've prodded, I've learned that they just don't know much at all about food production (which has no correlation to their education level).

I do in fact buy a lot of the same produce you do. I do this because I like to cook and eat and on a relative basis, I'm wealthy. Which is to say middle class.

I've talked to many of the people you listed and if you've followed my comments over time there is merit to their work.

Unlike what I read from your posts, I believe that agriculture continues to evolve and improve and benefits exist, as AL Farmer wrote, of looking at and learning from all production. But your posts indicate otherwise. You seem to think that since Henry can produce organic veggies and produce a sufficient amount to feed his wealthy customers, all of agriculture can and should be turned on its head and reshaped to something like what Henry does. (Let's not spend time weighing if that new national system of agriculture you envision would have many the very same attributes as the current system that you so detest). (Let's also not spend time, again, discussing why you can't promote your isolated form of production without having to constantly trash conventional production...is organic not organic unless conventional sucks the big one).

I buy organic, I buy local and I've posted in the past reasons to appreciate alternative forms or production. But I've also been a defender (and critic) of conventional agriculture while remaining agnostic.

The field that you, Philpott, Pollan et al don't seem to want to let your sheep loose in to graze is that of real suppy and demand. It's one thing to say that Henry's way for the entire country is the right way, it's another to demonstrate with some mild certainty that your vision has any basis in reality.

My challenge to you is that you set aside the all too common messaging and rhetorical tactics prevalent among the anti production crowd and simply explain how it will work.

Specifically:

Perhaps you could share with the board how your vision will replace the calories lost through significantly lower production. Please be specific.

And, rather than the casual "a bunch of urban gardeners in Chicago grow vegetables and so loss of arable land is not an issue," put a fact or two to that claim. If urban land was 100% maximized this afternoon, what sort of food production would that equate to and what % of the whole would that constitute?

Please explain from where the labor will be sourced when we revert to smaller farms with less technology since we're well into 100 years of the urban migration going the other way. Who are the kids that we're going to use to do the hard labor required on farm? What will they be paid?

Also explain how land erosion and fossil fuel usage will be lower with the system that you're talking about.

And then explain how when the U.S. population doubles this century from 300 million to 600 million, your vision will increase total food production in parallel with approximately 25% less land than we have today.

I know its a separate discussion from "taste" but it will provide a common understanding since I don't understand today how your vision address our most basic food requirement.