vision2020
Re: Fwd: Re: Speaking of "Toxic Palouse"
I'm going to edit out some of the previous comments, and simply
address a couple of questions to Mr. Willard:
> How can you call poisoning your neighbors (and your customers for that
> matter) responsible????????
You've used the word "poison" repeatedly in this discussion. What
chemicals, specifically, are you referring to, and in what dose, that
justifies the use of this term?
> >The people who are applying them have families living in this area, and
> >they do not do things that will be harmful to people.
>
> Yes they do! Of course they don't want to, or intend to, but nevertheless
> they ARE doing things which are very harmful to people (and themselves).
What, specifically, is being done to harm people? Is it your belief
that any synthetically-produced compound, used for any reason, and
present in any amount, is harmful?
> >Such measures are
> >needed to supply good food that is free of natural toxic substances at an
> >economically realistic price in large quantity. Malcolm Renfrew
> >
>
> So you are saying you have to apply artificial toxic substances in order to
> reduce natural toxic substances???? What natural toxic substances are you
> talking about?
I believe Dr. Renfrew's point is that one of the ways that plants
protect themselves from insect predation is by producing chemicals
that are toxic to insects. While it is possible to breed for
increased levels of those substances, those levels of "natural"
compounds might present a human health hazard if consumed. Please
don't confuse "natural" with "safe".
As far as the chemical nature of the naturally-occuring plant
substances that may be toxic, I'll defer to others with more
knowledge (or better references) at hand.
> There are many organic farms which survive quite well (they would survive
> even better if the other farmers weren't screwing up the ecosystem), they
> provide food that is truly good (i.e. not low level poison in disguise). And
> if you count the hidden costs of the current system (like most cancer
> treatments among others) then it's much cheeper to grow food without these
> chemicals.
Can anyone point out a truly unbiased discussion of the economics of
"organic" farming vs ... well, "non-organic" farming? Does anyone
have a handle on what kinds of differences in labor would be
required? Is there enough "organic" fertilizer available to
adequately fertilize the number of acres currently in production in
the United States?
Jeff Griffin jeffg@turbonet.com
Affirmative Technologies http://www.affirmnet.com/
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