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Old December 7, 2011   #46
JackE
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A chemical equivalent of a nuclear bomb is not an appropriate weapon
in this battle

Absolutely right, of course. And I think that government and industry have been doing a pretty good job of woking together on that front for many years. This list of banned chemicals is long, and some have been a real economic sacrifice for the industry - most recently Methyl Bromide fumigant - but they all hurt. Most have been replaced with safER (not necessarily safe) alternatives. It was a terrible blow when they took away our Orthene - people around here were really mad - but we survived it despite the fact that they haven't come-up with an alternative that works.

But back to your point about proliferation of GMO cultivars - I think those are all, or mostly, open pollinating themselves and will spread to neighboring fields and gardens. We plant GMO sweet corn. I don't think corn pollen spreads in the wind very far, but it could still spread to neighboring gardens (all pretty far away in our case) and introduce the Bt gene to their corn. And that's not right.

As far as I know, the only control on that is the large minimum order - several hundred dollars worth - which precludes most home gardeners. The government does not want it sold in seed packets etc., but as common as it is now it will soon be everywhere. I've had people ask me for a handful of seed - which I decline to do because of the contractual agreement but I never thought about the potential of proliferation. I'm sure other people give it away to others - and it's accessible to employees etc.

You've got a good point there, Dice. But it may just be one of those compromises we have to make in order to feed the world in the futur. What worris me more is that sooner or later the corn borers and earworms are going to develop resistance to the Bt gene. Then what?

Jack

Edit - When farmers sell their land to developers or agribusiness they usually get outta town with a big grin and a bulging wallet and live happily ever after in some seaside/golfing community in Florida.

Last edited by JackE; December 7, 2011 at 09:30 AM.
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Old December 8, 2011   #47
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When farmers sell their land to developers or agribusiness they usually get outta town with a big grin and a bulging wallet and live happily ever after in some seaside/golfing community in Florida.
I think it's more like the farmers are going belly-up and will take anything to pay their debts and get out from under the farm due to competition from big agribusiness. Ami
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Old December 8, 2011   #48
JackE
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I've seen both scenarios, Ami, but around here the main industry is timber and most of the land has/had been in the same family for generations. Country people who considered themselves poor suddenly found themselves millionaires when the big paper companies, like International Paper, Temple and Louisiana Pacific began buying the land. They now own approximately 2/3 of this 900 sq mile Texas county (my data on that is probably out-of-date).

I've been here for for many years and the land is better managed ecologically now, IMO, than it ever was when held in smaller parcels . We used to plant and clear-cut pine only and killed all the hardwood seedlings with herbicides to maintain a pine monoculture. The forestry professionals at Louisiana Pacific, which borders my property, have diversified the woods, encourage hardwoods and harvest them at maturity, stopped clear-cutting, brought modern management practices, are more concered about wildlife and the environment, and are more coooperative with government regulators and state wildflife agencies than ever before. Plant, birds and animals long considered gone have made a reappearance in recent decades.

They have also brought jobs and career opportunities to an area plagued by poverty and ignorance for generations. And they have developed new cultivars of pine which mature more quickly and are more suitable for paper production - and, most importantly, keep, our people working year-round.

The only downside for us is that they don't let us run our hunting dogs anymore and they enforce trespassing laws. They lease the land for hunting to wealthy city people and do not let us locals run rough-shod through the woods shooting every living thing in sight like we use to do. I do sort of miss the old "good ol' boy" system, when the land owners were friends and neighbors, and we paid no atttention to the fish and game laws nor had any concept of environmental respect. Modern civilization has caught-up with us!

I am less familiar with row farming than timber, but I do know that agribusiness has actually created niche markets for small growers, like most on this forum. They serve, very profitably in my experience, upscale consumers who demand higher quality produce, grown organically without toxic chemicals or genetic modification. Rather than hurt small growers, it seems to me that the large corporations have actually created new markets for them - not to mention all the technologcal advances that they benefit from - the organic pest controls they take for granted today were, after all, developed in the labs of large companies and universities.

American agribusiness has made us the most productive agricultural nation in the history of the human race. And it wasn't done by impoverished, backward, unschooled farmers like my ancestors. And it couldn't be that unhealthy - our expected life span has increased dramatically. I'm 75 and few of my progenitors lived that long - they were small farmers who did not use chemicals and were lucky to make 65!

Jack

Edit - On the topic, Ami - if small farmers couldn't compete with the large operations - on both price and quality - they deserve to go belly-up. For most of the last century we subsidized small farmers in this country - mainly for nostalgic reasons, they first plowed the virgin prarie and promulgated good christian values - but we're wisely getting away from those counterproductive policies now. Small farmers that could adapt to a changing world are still in business.

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Old December 9, 2011   #49
dice
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When farmers sell their land to developers or agribusiness they usually get outta town with a big grin and a bulging wallet and live happily ever after in some seaside/golfing community in Florida.
The guy I knew in Quincy died of cancer in the 1980s.

If you are a farmer using commercial fertilizers and not regularly
testing your land for heavy metal contamination, that seems to
me to be taking a big risk.

And outside the US, sheesh, these underdeveloped countries do not
even have regulations on toxic waste control. I can see a corporation
getting "a good deal on fertilizer", dumping it on a few hundred square
miles of bananas or coffee or cocoa or copra or whatever, then simply
putting the land up for sale when they realize from the dropping harvests
that the "good deal on fertilizer" was only a good deal for the industrial
and power plant and mining corporations using it avoid toxic waste
disposal costs.

Forestry may have a come a long way in the last 30 years, but having
corporations responsible for most of the world's food supply does not
seem anything like safe to me. It is their short term world view that
is the problem: anything they do is ok as long as the truth does not
come out until after the next quarterly report.

Take these underdeveloped countries where starvation is a chronic
problem: why would a corporate agricultural enterprise even plant
if the people are not going to have money to pay for the produce?
Only to export it elsewhere. That is not going to do much for the
starving peasants. Where there is still a substantial proportion of
small farmers who own their own farmland, they are going to plant
just to have the stuff to eat themselves. If any of the neighbors in
the towns have some money to buy their excess production, great.
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Old December 9, 2011   #50
dice
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PS: For Roundup Ready GMOs, there are some preliminary indications
that this stuff is not safe from a public health perspective. It certainly needs
more research before we can conclude that Roundup or the glyphosate
resistance genes are not the source of the problems that Huber identified:
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/...roundup-update

I do not personally worry about the safety of gmo foods in general.
In Europe they simply require that the stuff be labelled on store shelves
if it contains GMO components, so consumers can make their own choice
about it. That seems reasonable to me.

I do object to companies like Monsanto using wind-blown cross pollenation
and patent protection lawsuits to persecute farmers who decline to
grow their proprietary seed. The idea that it is the farmer's responsibility
to keep something like that out of his field when it is carried there by
wind, insects, etc, seems absurd to me (as it did to the Canadian
High Court). It is like throwing a land mine over your neighbor's fence
and then the police arresting him for having an illegal explosive on his
property.
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Old December 9, 2011   #51
JackE
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You make some good points, Dice. I admit that I went out to the shed and looked at the bags of liquid fertilizer to see if it listed ingredients. We use a Scott's product (Peter's 20-10-20) which is primarily used by the greenhouse industry. I do have confidence in the regulatory agencies - I mean we have no choice but to depend on them - but you did give me pause. And I'm still worried a little!

I think I can safely say, Dice, that in my experience the worst abuse of chemicals is in home gardens, followed closely by unregulated, small grower operations like ours. The larger growers are more likely to stay "on label" because they are more likely to have their product tested on a regular basis and they stand to lose a lot more than we do.

I can tell you some real horror stories - for example, when Orthene was taken off the market a few years back, we were left with no control for squash vine borers. A local gardener, who shall here remain nameless, told me that Surrender Fire Ant Control was 100% Acephate 75, exactly the same formulation as the Orthene we had been using for years and years. They didn't ban Acephate, he explained, they just changed the label to exclude food crops. How could it be that bad, he asked, if we used it all those years and nobody died from it?

Well, he doubtlessly went on to use the fire ant poison on his personal veggies, and I admit that I was tempted. Had it not been for the fact that these vegetables were a church project, and I was under strict policy to abide by all applicable laws and regulations, I might have joined him for "one last year" rather than see my beautiful zucchini destroyed. It would have been easy to rationalize in my mind, but I did not succumb to that particular sin

Larger commercial ag operations, and the people that work there, are under similar legal, economic and moral constraints as I was with my zucchini - and they are a whole lot more likely to "get caught" than people like you and me. I have been around heavy agriculture, and I saw them taking great care to stay precisely on-label with chemicals. An error or intentional violation could cost them their job! Just like me - I certainly had no desire to have to stand before my church and explain why I had put them in a legal bind!

Conclusion: The employees of large corporate farms are therefore much less likely to engage in illegal chemical use than home gardeners and small growers like us - because they get checked regularly and their employer will fire them if they cause a law suit. Their vegetables are probably, "cleaner" than what your neighbor gives you or what you buy from an unknown vendor at a street stand like ours - or at a farmer's market (even those claiming to be "mostly" organic growers).

I rest my case.
Your cyberfriend, Jack
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Old December 9, 2011   #52
dice
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In the Quincy case, the problem was not a failure to follow instructions
from the fertilizer vendor, it was the fertilizer itself. 20-10-20, that is
50 percent of something. So what is in the other 50 percent that is not
mentioned? The label does not say. If you are lucky, it is just some
innocuous compound in a molecular combination with the N-P-K,
trace minerals, etc. If you are not so lucky, it could be any kind of toxic
crap from heavy industry that was supplied to the fertilizer company
as a source of whatever nutrient is actually on the label.

Remember the guy from Bay Zinc? "It is hazardous waste [that cannot
be legally disposed of in a landfill, etc] when it goes into the top of the
silo, and it is "fertilizer" when it comes out of the bottom of the silo. Same
exact stuff."

That "stuff" is classed as hazardous waste by the EPA based on someone's
scientific research. They are not just making it up. So it is not safe enough
for landfills, because it leaches down into water tables, but it is safe
enough for someone's farm? Safe enough to end up on a grocery store
shelf, indirectly?

How many other Quincy, WAs are there out there in farm country that
we do not already know about? If I am a farmer, I cannot afford *not*
to get the contamination soil tests done. I mean, who is out there riding
around on a tractor all day when soil needs to be cultivated? Yikes.
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Old December 10, 2011   #53
JackE
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I have done a little reading on this. It seems that the problem is primarily Cadmium, which is present in phosphorous rock sources and carries through the manufacturing process to the final fertilizer product. Increased imports of P from Morocco (our natural P deposits were all in Florida and are now depleted) and the increasing use of sewage sludge, including P extraction and organic fertilizers, are aggravating the problem. It is a indeed a matter of concern and must be carefully monitored. The fertilizer industry is working on technologies to better extract Cd and other metals from their products.

Supposing I test my soil and it does show Cd pollution - what am I supposed to do about it - other than worry myself to death? Would I be better off buying my produce from the store? Even a certified organic grower is vulerable to this one - if he uses any outside source of fertilizer, including manure. As a result of this discussion, however, I am going to stop searching for cut-rate, unknown brand alternatives to the Scott product. I read that some crops take-up metals more than others.

In my case, it would probably wind-up in the water table. It probably would not show-up in a soil test because nothing stays in this soil very long - that's why I don't have to worry about salt build-up from fertilizer and also why I don't have any organic matter to deter nematodes.

I believe the industry claim that most fertilizers sold in America are [relatively] safe. And there's probably not much to worry about from Miracle-Gro and similar products. But the potential for health problems are always present in today's world and it's going to get worse. They say that if a Roman soldier were suddenly transported to our time he would die quickly from the air pollution alone. So we're likely developing natural resistance and immunities to a lot of these things - which may turn out to be what that saves us!

In the end, the solution to this, like everything else, will come from industry and their supporting academic communities. But environmental watchdogs and activists, although irritating at times, do provide a valuable service in keeping the regulatory agencies on their toes. It's comforting to know that there are people out there testing soil and watching the industry - although most abuses are the isolated acts of private contractors, or sometimes rogue corporate employees, and rarely the result of company policy. Good companies police themselves because scandals are bad for business.

We have to depend on state and federal agencies, and the industry itself, on matters like this. And like I said in my "no winners" post above, there will be pollution with expanding population and it will probably contibute to, if not actually cause, the demise of our species on this planet. Meanwhile, I'm not planning to lose a lot of sleep about it.

Jack

PS - I saw on Fox News that astronomers have found another planet out there with a surface temp of 70 degrees and liquid water, 2-1/2 times the size of earth. Hmmm! Sounds habitable - but even if we could get there (600 light years away from here), it wouldn't be habitable for long once WE arrived.

Last edited by JackE; December 10, 2011 at 11:13 AM.
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Old December 11, 2011   #54
dice
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Supposing I test my soil and it does show Cd pollution - what am I supposed to do about it - other than worry myself to death?
Lead would be a particular concern. It is not taken up very efficiently
by fruiting plants, but it is taken up to an extent by leafy vegetables.
The biggest danger for a farmer is simply inhaling the dust from the soil
when working. I would suggest a "heavy metals test" that tests for a
variety of metals that are EPA-controlled at high levels (cadmium, lead,
arsenic, antimony, mercury, etc; should probably also test for
contaminants like pcbs, dioxin, etc while they are at it).

You could talk to a soil testing lab and say, "Suppose I wanted to build
a kindergarten here. What all would I need to test for? What would that
cost?" There may be some programs from the state that can do that
sort of thing. Talk to the school districts. Where would they go for that
kind of test? (They probably have a list of state and federal approved
labs somewhere.)

As for vendors, here is a random Scott's fertilizer that I picked out of
the "commercial" section of the WA St. Fertilizer database:
http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilize...spx?pname=1685

Here is a Scott's 20-10-20 "Continuous Feed":
http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilize...aspx?pname=496

The whole "S" page:
http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilize...iewTable&ltr=S

You can look stuff up in that database here:
http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilize...tDatabase.aspx

(If something is not sold in Washington, it will not be there.)

Tests like these on fertilizers sold need to be done *every* year. Testing
a product once and then using the same figures for a decade does not
cut it. (I see some fairly suspicious figures in the retail Consumer Products
part of that database, where you have 10 different formulations from
a single vendor that all have exactly the same figures for contaminants.
I doubt it.)
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Old December 11, 2011   #55
JackE
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Thanks for the data, Dice. Most of the metals listed for the 20-10-20 are printed on the bag as "trace elements," but some are not.

Whatever contamination I'm getting is most likely in my groundwater rather than the soil - as I have said, this coarse sand doesn't hold anything for very long. Since there has never been any heavy agriculture, except pine trees, or industry around here I have never worried about our well water, and have never had it tested. There is a fairly new, very large greenhouse operation 1-1/2 miles down the road, though. No telling what they are doing!

I am going to drop by our extension agent's office on Monday and ask her if we need to be worried about this. If there were a problem in our area, TX A&M would have informed her. We usually depend on A&M when it comes to any chemical safety issue - I don't think anybody knows more about this stuff than they do.

Thanks again - I really have enjoyed our dialog. A productive way to spend cold winter days. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours,

Jack

Last edited by JackE; December 11, 2011 at 11:24 AM.
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Old December 13, 2011   #56
dice
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I am going to drop by our extension agent's office on Monday and ask her if we need to be worried about this.
I would ask her, "Where do I test for heavy metals and other EPA regulated
soil contamination, like dioxin, etc, and how much does it cost?"

(I am more interested in whether my fields are actually contaminated
than I am in someone's impression of average soil contamination in my
area.)
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Old December 13, 2011   #57
JackE
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I am almost 100% sure there are no significant pollutants in my soil - not because I don't add them, but because nothing stays in this soil - it's almost pure sand, Dice - everything added disappears with the first rain. My worry is groundwater, which, of course, I share with all my neighbors for several miles around.

And that, interestingly enough, is exactly why I have nematodes - no organic matter (not that I haven't tried!!). One would think the nematodes would wash down with everything else, but they must have some way of clinging to the grains of sand.

The sand, actually, is not a bad growing medium (if it weren't for the nems) - if you're into hydroponics that is, because that's about what it amounts to here. "Sterile" medium (I wish!), all nutrients added.

The thread has come full circle back to the topic! That's unusual.

Jack
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Old December 13, 2011   #58
dice
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Jack, you asked one other question that I did not answer. What to do
if a lab finds that heavy metals or other toxins contamination?

Well, I do not really know. Send the results to the EPA, see if they
declare it a SuperFund site, and set up a taco stand in the driveway
for the remediation workers that will be passing through? Just an idea.

You could probably sell your story to the papers, too.

(Another question for Texas A&M: "If my well is contaminated, is there
any way I can filter the water and still use it for drinking water, irrigation,
etc?")
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Old December 14, 2011   #59
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On remediation of contaminated farm land, I was kind of curious
about this myself. I know what happens on industrial SuperFund sites,
because we have one nearby: http://epa.gov/superfund/programs/re...ers/asarco.htm

(I am always kind of nervous about collecting wood chips, tree leaves,
etc, from that end of town. "Rhododendron mulch only.")

Here is the Wikipedia article on bioremediation. Of particular interest
in this context is the third paragraph, on dealing with heavy metals
contamination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioremediation

Here is the Wikipedia article on specifically phytoremediation, growing
plants that will absorb the contaminants so that they can be removed
along with the above-ground part of the plant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoremediation
(Remembering what happened in Quincy, one does need to resist
the temptation to give the harvested plants to a neighbor for livestock
feed. I do not know what is typically done with the phytoremediation
plants after they are harvested.)

And finally, a company in Texas that specializes in this sort of land
recovery: http://phytofarms.com/phytoremediation-projects.html
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Old December 14, 2011   #60
JackE
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I think the worst site in the nation is right there in Washington - the old Hanford Nuclear Facility. Is there still even a town there? I know they've been trying to clean it up for decades.

Back during the Cold War, the Hanford HS football team was "The Hanford Bombers" and their school emblem was a mushroom cloud. At games, their cheer leaders shouted "GO BOMBERS GO! NUKE 'EM, NUKE 'EM, BLOW 'EM AWAY!"

Even us Texas warmonger rednecks were shocked by that. LOL

Jack
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