Reducing Safe Things

categories: Gene Modification, Pest Management, Pollution

Published May 24, 2009 @ 12:35PM PT

New soy bean crops; by Sentrawoods A North Dakota State Senator and farmer speaks of his love of biotech and pesticides:

... Chemical sprays are a necessary part of food production--and they’re safe--but we all strive to reduce their use. ...

I try to reduce the use of safe and necessary things, too. That just seems like good sense.

Seriously, though ... He's writing about an industry-applauded report indicating that says biotech crops decrease pesticide use. Well, last year, an NGO-sponsored study showed the exact opposite. Consider this, at minimum:

* U.S. government data reveal a huge 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate on soybeans, corn and cotton in the U.S. from 1994 to 2005, driven by adoption of Roundup Ready versions of these crops.

* Rising glyphosate use has spawned a growing epidemic of weeds resistant to the chemical in the U.S., Argentina and Brazil. Weed scientists have reported glyphosate-resistant weeds infesting 2.4 million acres in the U.S. alone.

* Increasing weed resistance to glyphosate has led to rising use of other toxic chemicals. In the U.S., the amount of 2,4-D applied to soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. 2,4-D was a component of the Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange. In Argentina, it is projected that 25 million liters of herbicides other than glyphosate will be needed to tackle glyphosate-resistant Johnsongrass. ...

This is what that data is saying: temporary drops in the total use of new pesticides will eventually get wiped out by the need to apply more, or different, pesticides when pest organisms develop resistance.

Also, pest organisms always eventually develop resistance. It's called evolution, look it up.

(Photo credit: Sentrawoods on Flickr.)

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Comments (12)

OK now for some perspective. Of course glyphosphate went up from 1994, they used to use atrazine in 1994 before GM soybeans were commercialized. Now with these GM crops the level of glyphosphate is stable and the EIQ is greatly reduced yet yields are up.

If you are unaware of EIQ, it stands for environmental impact quotient. It measures the overall impact of any pesticide. If you google the Cornell site you can look up over two hundred compounds including organic pesticides.

2,4 D is not made the way it was in Vietnam and is now considered safe by regulatory agencies around the world.

Resistance is universal and has occurred since man began using compounds to deal with weeds thousands of years ago. Nothing unique with glyphosate. IPM is the answer to the resistance issue with glyphosate.

By using GM crops there have been huge reductions in soil erosion, groundwater contamination and negative effects on amphibians from the older herbicides replaced by glyphosate.

There is no such thing as impact free agriculture and data clearly shows adoption of GM herbicide tolerant crops have help reduce the EIQ for the farmers who plant them.

Posted by Robert Wager on 05/24/2009 @ 03:41PM PT
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Natasha

I would like to know your idea of what constitutes sustainable agriculture. If you would be so kind as to tell us, we can then debate the pros and cons of how to achieve it. We all have children and we all want our children to have a better life then we had so this topic is important to everyone.

Thanks

Posted by Robert Wager on 05/24/2009 @ 05:40PM PT
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There are over 280 posts on this blog that respond to that fairly general question. Stick around a while, I'm sure that any specific point will come up again.

Posted by Natasha Chart on 05/27/2009 @ 10:58AM PT
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How about I give you mine and we can start there.

The world is not black and white, but shades of grey. This means there are no absolutes in any field including agriculture.

The 700 pound gorilla in the room is 6.5 billion people growing to 8-9 billion by 2050. With this pressure some options are not viable. Totally organic can only feed 4 billion and without 2+ billion volunteers to dissappear it can not feed the world. Total monocrops and industrial ag is also not a option for obvious reasons.

Global economics are what they are and capitalism will be around for a long time. Yes there is plenty of room for improvement but change will be slow in this areana.

Global freshwater is crucial to growing food. Presently 70% of all freshwater is used in agriculture. We must learn to do more with less. Here is one area of agriculture where many systems can contribute to the whole. Drip irrigation, agriforestry, IPM, GM drought tolerant crops, reduced-zerotillage and others will all play a role in a "more sustanable" global agriculture.

What are some of your thoughts on water wrt sustainablitiy?

Posted by Robert Wager on 05/24/2009 @ 05:52PM PT
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Pesticides are retarded. Lets protect the water, the air, the soil, and our bodies by growing food locally, not on a huge corporate farms. And NOT WITH PESTICIDES!!! GREED!!! GREED!!! GREED!!! IT LAYS THIS PLANET TO WASTE. Its kinda icky how so much land is owned by such destructive gold-diggers. Really they could earn more money though, if they did everything nature-friendly.

Posted by mike thornton on 05/26/2009 @ 11:21AM PT
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Capitalism and communism both allow a greedy, unthinking, unspiritual dogma of competitive nature to take control. When people don't care, the planet gets messed up. Its that simple. Controlling people will keep doing their damage because the majority of people are slaves to the money these guys are handing out. If they don't pledge their allegiance to a damaging system, then they become the excluded. People just need to start caring again.

Posted by mike thornton on 05/26/2009 @ 11:30AM PT
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The Environment is More Important Than The Economy. If people have hearts than they can get through this easily, and change could occur!

Posted by mike thornton on 05/26/2009 @ 11:32AM PT
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I'm not sure I like this framing, Mike, though I can see where you're coming from.

The way I've heard it said that seems most reasonable is that the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. Wreck the habitat that provides the basis of human life and there's no economy on Earth, just like there isn't one on the Moon.

Posted by Natasha Chart on 05/27/2009 @ 11:06AM PT
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I can see you have strong feeling on this Mike but the reality is there are 6.5 billion people to feed and there will be soon 8-9 billion and whether you like it or not pesticides will be needed to feed them. The best we can hope for is to use pesticides, water, fertilizer and even land smarter.

Posted by Robert Wager on 05/26/2009 @ 06:11PM PT
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Here's the problem, Robert: The planet's carrying capacity is going to be reduced to about a billion people through global warming by the end of the century unless we can give up our addiction to ecosystem-destroying industrial chemicals and fossil fuels.

And agriculture without pesticides, which used to just be called 'agriculture', can match yields with industrial agriculture given betting planning and higher labor inputs. (It's just true, and Google is your friend. Or mine at least.) Not that the world has an incipient labor shortage.

In fact, it seems particularly silly to continue substituting things we have diminishing reserves of for things we have an abundant and expanding supply of - which is to say, us and our capacity to problem solve.

Maybe it's comforting to think that the pinnacle of human wisdom was attained somewhere around 1955 in a meeting of the USDA and chemical company executives, but that seems unlikely on its face.

Posted by Natasha Chart on 05/27/2009 @ 11:04AM PT
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Agriculture without pesticieds does not exist. True sometimes the pesticides are from "natural sources" but that does not make them any less deadly to the pest we try to control. If I told you organic agriculture can use a multitude of chemicals to control pests would that surprise you. Pyrethrum, sabadilla, ryania and rotenone are all permitted in certified organic farming and are all neurotoxins. (Except rotenone can no longer be sold in Canada as of Dec 31 08) If we expect to feed the world, and most definitely far more than one billion in our lifetime. We will need every type of agriculture including organic, conventional, biotech, IPM, agriforestry and others. May I suggest you read "Tomorrows Table" or at least google it and see what it is about.

Posted by Robert Wager on 05/27/2009 @ 06:13PM PT
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The internet is a wonderful source of facts and fiction. The trick is to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. As for organic being equal in yields I have a few peer reviewed references that disagree with you (and many sites on the internet).

20% yield drag-Mader et al Research Institute of Organic Agriculture. Science 296:1694-7, May 31 2002

Organic rice about 50%- www.ricejuornal.com March 2002

Organic Wheat-50%, Organic Barley 60%, Or potatoes 58% UK government study

Organic corn on average 85% (but nasty fungal toxins, including those which cause birth defects, are through the roof in organic compared to Bt corn . Two agriculture institutes and seven university research projects.

With the yield drag well documented, to even grow the same amount of food we do today we would have to plow under millions of acres of wilderness. At best organic can only possibly feed four billion people. As Dr. Borlaug stated: "I don't see two billion volunteers to disappear.

I suggest the world does not have a choice but to advace science to help with this monumental task of feeding the world.

Posted by Robert Wager on 05/27/2009 @ 06:36PM PT
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Natasha is an amateur eater with severe snarkolepsy and a c. 2002 blogging habit. She had a fabulous time studying ecological agriculture and policy at The Evergreen State College, and even did her homework while writing at various times for pacificviews.org, boomantribune.com, and mydd.com.