Weeds Are Destroying Crops Globally—but the Real Problem Is Big Agriculture

[thylacine13]

Glyphosate and petroleum-based fertilizers are essential for the parasitical corporate-industrial “food” model to function as designed. Without them, the corporate-industrial fake food system would collapse. The system is responsible for the global obesity pandemic. Since the system could not sustain itself without massive petrochemical applications, it seems fair to attribute a large part of the blame to those petrochemical applications.

But thank you for your reply. By the way, have you read Colin Todhunter’s work on the consequences of adopting the Monsanto-Bayer model of Big Chemical Agriculture? Here’s his most recent essay on this topic:

^https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/04/gates-unhinged-dystopian-vision-for-agrifood-must-not-succeed/#more-115591

[EdB]

Many things wrong w CA approach to water. Most obvious to frequent travelers are the McMansion suburban sprinklers, running often without stint, the excess draining heavily down the street. Fee structures for water use seem to be inequitable–huge quantities allowed for individual/family use in expensive gated communities, all at rock bottom (unrealistically low) prices, whereas those outside and in the “regular” world pay more and are required to use a much smaller allocation. Still, the enforcement on water waste is relatively non-existent. It has always amazed me.

[Elcil]

Indeed, when reading “the study” you find out alot more that is not exactly beneficial to the argument of this article. Of course it is much more complicated, but the articles are printed. I’m over it.

@Stuart_M

primitive, low yielding, organic farming,

Cherry picked data can provide any outcome. Even if true, some drawbacks provide larger returns in other ways.

[Elcil]

If only everyone had the time to read, understand, and care.

Maybe a movie? A sci-fi action blockbuster. Young (high school/college aged) beautiful do-gooders accidentally fighting evil spies in possession of a secret briefcase which contains an unknown weapon intended for the destruction of civilization.

Climactic battle of wits, weapons, and other worldly martial prowess ends with our Heroines and heroes destroying the (plot twisted) cyborg factory and suitcase full of GMO seeds.

I’d probably watch it…

[Vista703]

Major Big-AG issue here in the U.S. is CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) or, as most people call them - factory farms. Ten of thousands of chickens or hogs that never see the light of day because they’re stuck inside huge computer-controlled buildings where food is brought to them on conveyor belts and their waste is also removed by machinery.

Conditions for the animals are so unhealthy that their feed is laced with antibiotics so they won’t get sick and die. According to the HighTower report, about 75% of the antibiotics used in this country go to CAFOs. Trace antibiotics are found in the animal products grown in these facilities and are therefore consumed by people.

Doctors are now reluctant to prescribe antibiotics out of concerns about superbugs but - too late! - meat eaters are already being fed a steady diet of trace antibiotics.

Due to this threat to public health and because of the environmental damage they cause - think massive amounts of animal waste, U.S. senator Cory Booker from New Jersey is trying to get CAFOs banned nationwide. I’m sure Big AG will put up quite a fight.

[bardamu]

The EU has a better record on this than Britain, unless I have missed something

[bardamu]

Not really, though I suppose had there been no people, there would have been no human-level mistakes.

But no, you can feed and otherwise care for far more people if you keep the water than if you release it to the ocean as is done. You stop the water, spread it, and sink it.

There are actually plenty of wonderful food crops that grow in dry lands as well. Cereus, Stenocereus, and Myrtillocactus offer fruits at very little expense past the harvest. Opuntia offer fresh and easily preserved vegetables as well as fruit, and material for a lot of crafts. Agave provides a starch staple on around a fifth of the water used by wheat. Mesquite are native to the eastern Mojave Desert and offer a beautiful mildly sweet flour with a protein profile similar to that of beans.

But sure, if you stop the Colorado River, ferry it overland through long-dry soils, spill it across the Imperial and Coachella Valleys, and across much of Nevada and Arizona, let it sit and evaporate at Lake Mead, throw rotating sprinklers around all over, run the sewage and grey water into the ocean–then yes, the fewer people that are there to do all that, the better.

But people do not always act that way. Whole cultures have acted very differently. It is the culture that is FUBAR, not the species. 40 million people living even moderately well could occupy the state indefinitely without damage. We could regreen it. We just have to get a little bit smart about it.

[bardamu]

Applause for the good work, Steve.

[fern]

Humm, looking at this through a different lens. just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans

[fern]

Great comment. The pharmaceutical industry in India is actually breeding superbugs in the affluent from poorly managed waste water. Puerto Rico is similarly polluted from this industry as well.