Posts: 1,406
Threads: 25
Joined: Jun 2013
Sorry edge,
From my commercial nursery experience; Pesticides kill pests, whether they be bugs or weeds or fungus. Insecticides specifically kill insects, herbicides kill weeds, fungicides kill fungi. They are all pesticides.
edit; I stand by my original statement; "Let's see...... A pesticide company develops a seed that resists pesticide, enabling corporate farmers to spray more pesticide, purchased from the chemical company that monopolizes the seed."
Posts: 11,474
Threads: 775
Joined: Sep 2012
I farmed for years, and never heard anyone in the countryside refer to an herbicide as a pesticide, but you're right, I looked it up, herbicide is included under the broad definition of pesticide.
Weeds and plants can be included in the common definition for pest:
1. an annoying or troublesome person, animal, or thing; nuisance.
2. an insect or other small animal that harms or destroys garden plants, trees, etc.
3. a deadly epidemic disease, especially a plague; pestilence.
Since "thing" is included under definition #1 that pretty much includes weeds, and everything else as well.
It certainly is a less than precise definition, and as a former farmer I would go so far as to say such a broad interpretation is troublesome, even a nuisance. Think I'll see if I can find an approved pesticide to spray on it.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
Posts: 2,485
Threads: 10
Joined: Feb 2008
quote:
Originally posted by gypsy69
Well Pahoated you dug up a bone I had buried. I am one of those totally wrong anti- GMO people that must be hysterically hallucinating according to you and your so-called proof. Lower Puna has more ag land than residential lots, most of which is Papaya(gmo papaya). I have tried to go out and talk to many of these farmers who mostly are Filipino who don't speak English. Try asking them what kind of poisons or pesticides they are using on their fields, They try to act friendly yet you get no real answers. My wife developed bells palsy for a month living next to one of these papaya farms, It never got better until we moved away.
These Papaya fields are sprayed regularly enough with guys in suits that make nasa's space men jealous, and residents close by nervous. Corn fields are small on the big isle compared to the thousands of acres of this Papaya that I believe is GMO-grown. The Filipino's who work the fields may be spraying these fields with poison chemicals so the White plantation owner's dont have to.
A few things I worry about are build up of these fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides washing down into the ocean in uncontrolled amounts due to our unexpected hard rains we get and lack of proper irrigation. I worry about feral pigs eating or lying around all these ferts and chemicals then dying and breaking down with things like Lepto that then gets carried or spread. I worry that these Filipino's spray poisons upward into the trees that then can become air born with our variable winds at times, Builds up in the air over our neighborhoods until rain finally brings down this acid onto our trees, or into our water. I worry all this experimentation of GMO papaya will eventually damage our reefs or our rain forest. Sorry to be so negative, If anyone has proof that these GMO Papaya farms in Puna are safe, well ran, or positively contribute to Puna even financially, then please write in to enlighten me to how. If anyone knows roughly how many acres in Puna is currently being GMO-farmed please enlighten us all. Or if anyone knows how much ferts, pesticides, or herbicides are being used per acre for these types of GMO papaya farms?. Or can anyone tell me what poisons they use because the farming filipino's pretend not to understand my English?.
I had Bell's Palsey. Know what the doctor told me? Lasts about 2 weeks for most people to .... forever for some. Lasted about 2 1/2 weeks for me. Lasted 4 weeks for your wife? Perfectly consistent with what the doctor told me and she said nothing about GMO crops, pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.
NASA space suits? Please. When I was a kid people didn't even buckle up. I had a reaction to some pesticide that I sprayed on a house foundation. I should have been wearing a suit. I wasn't. Sounds like these guys are just using proper PPE.
Lepto? Again, please. Leptospirosis is independent of the GMO controversy.
GMO crops damaging our reefs (more than a century and a half of industrial sugar farming did)? Creative.
Filipinos spraying poisons that fall on us as acid? I have to be careful here. I don't know whether "poisons" are acid based. I don't know what poisons or what acid. I don't know what Filipinos.
The point is, neither do you. Yet you want your assertions to stand unless proven wrong. You embarrass yourself.
Posts: 272
Threads: 3
Joined: Jan 2014
quote:
Originally posted by pahoated
...
"Web sites aren't built from thin air."
Ummm, yes they are. Anyone can throw a website together on the cheap.
Even if you don't know html, there are free hosts, free website templates, and such sites can be populated with content found online.
Right out of thin air!
"Life is labor, and all that is good in life comes from that labor..."
"Life is labor, and all that is good in life comes from that labor..."
Posts: 5,150
Threads: 84
Joined: Feb 2009
"We've had non GMO and non chemical farming for thousands of years, so we know that what we want has a proven track record to match."
Chemical farming has been increasing for the last 100 or so years and became really big after WWII.Should we go back to the times before the industrial revolution ??
Here is a viewpoint about your demand for testing:
"The latest discussions (debates? arguments? long drawn-out 140-character battles?) have related to the safety of GMOs. Without exception, the argument from the naysayers comes down to “We don’t know what the longterm effects are, so we should ban them until we can conclude that they’re safe.” In other words, we’re trying to prove a negative – show me that there’s no adverse effects whatsoever and I’ll believe it’s ok. Utterly impossible.
Perhaps we should take a long-term approach to all new technologies. iPhones were only introduced seven years ago, yet many of us spend considerable amounts of time typing on them, or holding them to our ears when they’re not in our pockets – what health-damaging consequences could these shiny new toys confer? I’ve yet to meet anybody who, when scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery, demanded that the surgeon only used techniques developed in 1964; or a type I diabetes sufferer who would only use insulin produced from pigs, as it was originally in 1923.
In medicine, we seem happy to trust that science has the answers – not surprisingly, we prefer to survive today and take our changes with side-effects tomorrow. With regards to food however, the opposite appears to be the case. When we have sufficient food being supplied to everybody in the world to allow them to be healthy and productive, we can then start refining the food system. Until then, the emphasis should be on finding solutions to world hunger, not forcing food system paranoia onto those who don’t have a choice."
Posts: 357
Threads: 17
Joined: Feb 2014
(should we go back to the times before the industrial revolution)?well if you have a way to get there I want to ride that train.Growing up at ground zero of that revolution(pittsburgh pa.)seeing first hand the results,I say the times before the unchecked polution,raping of the land,eradication of native species,introduction of invasive species,swelling pockets of the robber barrons and my beloved ancestors owing it all to the company store.Getting black lung in return.Yes I will be first to board that train.First thing i would like to do when I get there fish in the un dammed unspoiled allegheny river for the 5 pound native brook trout that were so commen at the time and now just all gone...[xx(]
Posts: 1,217
Threads: 18
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 1,522
Threads: 13
Joined: Apr 2014
Aye, there's the rub!!
Are you a human being, or a human doing?
Posts: 41
Threads: 15
Joined: May 2007
I agree with Oneself. Very well said! Eat what you want, but allow me to know what I am eating! Although, I would like to NOT have any of those chemicals on my land!
Jean Hopper
Jean Hopper
Posts: 308
Threads: 4
Joined: Oct 2013
You would more have to worry about the pollen spreading to your land but GMO is not the same as chemical contamination. It's genetic contamination which could prove to be much worse because there is a point of no return with genetics.
|
