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"The truth is, you will not be able to feed 7 billion people without using pesticides." I'm sorry you believe that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQdCkPR6ZCw

"The truth is, you will not be able to feed 7 billion people without using pesticides." I'm sorry you believe that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQdCkPR6ZCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQdCkPR6ZCw

realusername 7y ago
If that would work better than pesticides and produce more, farmers would have switched already.
- vkou 7y ago
  If non-leaded gasoline worked better then leaded gasoline, why didn't the industry switch towards it, before governments around the world banned it? That's because what works better for the vendors and purchasers of a product may not be what works best for society, as a whole. I'm not sure why this needs to be explained. (I don't have a horse in the glyphosate race. I'm not an expert on its dangers, and I'm not sure what expert consensus on it is, at the moment.)
  - realusername 7y ago
    Because it was cheaper to make? You just answered your own comment.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      The salient point is that people will use dangerous and less effective solutions if they're cheaper. Leaded gasoline is a good example. So when people suggest there might be alternatives to pesticides the answer is not automatically that pesticides are the best solution. They might just be the cheapest.
  - headsoup 7y ago
    Why didn't industry switch away from CFC's until a cheaper option became available?... 'Corporate ethics.'
- headsoup 7y ago
  I the position that massive (and apparently unlimited) population is necessary and a foregone conclusion wasn't the default, perhaps things would be approached a bit better than 'what's the cheapest bulk solution' to problems...
  - realusername 7y ago
    I do agree but forced population limitation seems to be an even less popular option than pesticides.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- roenxi 7y ago
  Probably, but the question wasn't 'does it work better?'. The question was 'does it work?'. The two are different in an important way. Better is a very difficult quality to nail down in an objective sense. If I pay twice as much for something I expect I'll get a product of much higher quality. Is it better? That depends on how much I value quality. I've got no insight at all into how farming works, but it the bottleneck might be any number of things rather than the pesticides. It is obviously better to keep the process cheap all else being equal, but there might be another way that works well enough.
seltzered_ 7y ago
Your video link focuses on alpine-region permaculture in Austria. Some of the biggest food security threats are in entirely different regions (Africa).

realusername 7y ago

If that would work better than pesticides and produce more, farmers would have switched already.

vkou 7y ago
If non-leaded gasoline worked better then leaded gasoline, why didn't the industry switch towards it, before governments around the world banned it? That's because what works better for the vendors and purchasers of a product may not be what works best for society, as a whole. I'm not sure why this needs to be explained. (I don't have a horse in the glyphosate race. I'm not an expert on its dangers, and I'm not sure what expert consensus on it is, at the moment.)
- realusername 7y ago
  Because it was cheaper to make? You just answered your own comment.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    The salient point is that people will use dangerous and less effective solutions if they're cheaper. Leaded gasoline is a good example. So when people suggest there might be alternatives to pesticides the answer is not automatically that pesticides are the best solution. They might just be the cheapest.
- headsoup 7y ago
  Why didn't industry switch away from CFC's until a cheaper option became available?... 'Corporate ethics.'
headsoup 7y ago
I the position that massive (and apparently unlimited) population is necessary and a foregone conclusion wasn't the default, perhaps things would be approached a bit better than 'what's the cheapest bulk solution' to problems...
- realusername 7y ago
  I do agree but forced population limitation seems to be an even less popular option than pesticides.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
roenxi 7y ago
Probably, but the question wasn't 'does it work better?'. The question was 'does it work?'. The two are different in an important way. Better is a very difficult quality to nail down in an objective sense. If I pay twice as much for something I expect I'll get a product of much higher quality. Is it better? That depends on how much I value quality. I've got no insight at all into how farming works, but it the bottleneck might be any number of things rather than the pesticides. It is obviously better to keep the process cheap all else being equal, but there might be another way that works well enough.

seltzered_ 7y ago

Your video link focuses on alpine-region permaculture in Austria. Some of the biggest food security threats are in entirely different regions (Africa).