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The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous i
by dade_ 3y ago
The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told.
So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous is from spraying the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are downright scary chemicals, and we genetically modify crops to improve tolerance of these chemicals.
And that is when I went all GMO free, not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified genes, that’s plain stupid. Nature does that all day.
But when chemicals so awful they kill the crop, the crop’s genes need to be modified so that they don’t die and that chemical residue ends up all over our food system, well buddy, get me off this stupid crazy train.
I hope the settlement hits trillions. Burn the fuckers down.
- conception 3y agoNon-gmos use pesticides, nearly all farming does, and usually more than GMO crops. Eg https://i0.wp.com/sitn.hms.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/fig2pesticides.png https://i0.wp.com/sitn.hms.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/20... From https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/gmos-and-pesticides/ https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/gmos-and-pesticides/
- jdblair 3y agoRoundup isn't a pesticide, or an insecticide (as the charts above are labeled). Roundup is an herbicide, which is why it is so useful to combine with GMO crops. When you spray a field for weeds with Roundup, your crop doesn’t die because it has resistance built in. More clearly, Roundup kills weeds, not bugs.
- selcuka 3y ago> Roundup isn't a pesticide, or an insecticide (as the charts above are labeled). Roundup is an herbicide Pesticide is an umbrella term for herbicides, insecticides, and other types of substances. If you've read the paper, it mentions that too: > Pesticides are substances used to repel, kill, or control animals (insecticides) or plants (herbicides) that are considered to be pests. You are correct, though, in that while insecticide use decreased (because GMOs help insect resistance), herbicide use has actually increased because of herbicide tolerance of GMO crops.
- dade_ 3y ago[flagged]
- KennyBlanken 3y agoIn Europe where GMOs are banned and pesticide use is lower...yields are higher than in the US. "We need to use poison to grow food to feed everyone" is bunch of false-dilemma poppycock. If it were truly a matter of "we need to feed everyone", we wouldn't be wasting massive amounts of grain on raising cattle, which is one of most wasteful ways of generating food there is. 80% of agricultural land is used for cattle, but they only represent 20% of the calories in food consumed. We also wouldn't be growing corn just to turn it into ethanol, a net-energy-negative process. We also wouldn't be controlling the price of sugar, thus creating a huge demand for corn to turn into corn syrup. Corn is also an incredibly resource-intensive crop all on its own, and the monocropping is terrible for the soil. But corn is where the money is..
- batch12 3y ago> 80% of agricultural land is used for cattle I don't think this is true. Did you mean livestock?
- b112 3y agoOn top of that, much land cattle graze on is entirely unsuitable for growing crops.
- rschneid 3y agoAnecdotally, I think pesticides become 'necessary' when a specific farm desires greater than a particular density of crop. Sure, the collective can achieve sufficient production with less use of these chemicals however when a farm is at a point where their plants are touching each other then serious pesticides are required if they wish to increase their yield further without pests becoming a catastrophic risk to the entire operation. If only we could all agree to just grow 'enough' instead of growing as much as science allows...
- hinkley 3y agoOnce we started expecting farmers to be specialists instead of generalists. If you only know apples you want as many of them as you can fit. Which means pathogens have a buffet laid out.
- squeaky-clean 3y agoI don't know if what they're saying is true, but I don't think they're saying non-GMO plants don't use pesticides. They're saying GMO crops use even stronger pesticides, strong enough that it would kill the non-GMO variants of these plants. And they want to avoid the kind of pesticides in their salad that would kill a non-modified lettuce, or whatever plant.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoPeople tell me "GMO food is perfectly safe" and they do not seem to understand that in practice they genetically modify the food so they can dump glyphosate on it and that's what I want to avoid eating!
- bluGill 3y agoWhat makes you think non GMO is any safer? GMO seeds are studied to confirm safety, everything else is not studied at all. Random mutations happen all the time in non GMO food, but nobody checks if it is safe. Thus your worse case for GMO is no different than any other food '
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jjoonathan 3y agoHow does glyphosate compare to the usual alternatives?
- bluGill 3y agoWell the main alternative was cultivation, that is dragging a steal hoe threw the ground. This releases a lot of co2, both from burning fuel and faster decomposition of organic matter and so is a factor in global warming. That hoe also destoryes the soil and leads to topsoil loss. Glyphosate allows modern farm to leave the soil alone and that builds more top soil.
- monodeldiablo 3y agoNo-till organic farms exist.
- dathinab 3y agoDepending on who you ask there is no usual alternative which is in any way competitive and isn't so similar to phosphorylate that any harmfulness of glyphosate like applies to it, too. Through other people will tell you this is propaganda bs. I'm not in a position to make any proper judgement there, but it seems that not using glyphosate _or similar_ requires major changes to the approach of farming used.
- dgroshev 3y ago"Chemicals killing the crop" aren't inherently dangerous to your body, that's just chemophobia. Best quality artisanal chocolate can easily kill your cat. Nicotine kills bugs and is benign in humans. Belladonna would kill you, but a goat can munch on it without much trouble. Lots of stuff is lethal to some species and harmless to others, "this chemical is so bad it kills plants" is as rational as "chocolate is so bad it kills cats".
- bigbillheck 3y ago> Nicotine ... benign in humans Not 100% sure I agree with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning
- edgyquant 3y ago>chemophobia How ridiculous. You should be afraid of chemicals you don’t understand. That’s common sense
- lightedman 3y ago"Nicotine kills bugs and is benign in humans." One drop of nicotine put under your tongue will kill you deader than a doornail.
- dade_ 3y ago[flagged]
- dgroshev 3y agoNo, I'm not saying that, how can you read my reply that way in good faith? I didn't say anything about Hersheys either.
- dade_ 3y agoChemophobia - it annoys me that people think that the only harm we must consider for herbicides and pesticides is humans, then proceeded to dump billions of gallons of this, which ultimately end up down rivers, lakes, and oceans. there are countless creatures being affected by the chemicals, but somehow we skip that study. You brought up chocolate. Hersheys arguably is chocolate and the Consumer Reports study is actually about dark chocolate, and all the amazing chemicals in it.
- amelius 3y ago> The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. How about the surface of the crops?
- hinkley 3y agoI figure it’s like dentists wearing aprons when doing teeth X-rays. It’s not that you are receiving a dangerous dose, it’s that they are exposed over, and over, and over again all day. That hat has seen every acre of that farm, at 10-30 foot intervals. Several times a year.
- nwiswell 3y ago> But when chemicals so awful they kill the crop, the crop’s genes need to be modified so that they don’t die and that chemical residue ends up all over our food system Fortunately, you are not a plant. These chemicals just need to not harm humans (and domestic animals). The fact that they did, in this case, is merely a safety failure. There is nothing which says that pesticides and herbicides must be harmful to humans, and if these judgments are big enough, hopefully in the future there will be sufficient motivation to ensure that they won't be.
- LordShredda 3y agoAlthough we have seen very frequently that pesticides still affect some humans or animals. At this point, shouldn't we just reduce the possible points of failures instead of hoping the next miracle molecule doesn't kill us all twenty years later?
- echelon 3y agoVery frequently? These chemicals are benign and the media and activists have been scaring people for decades without justification. The fact that their arguments are often convolved with arguments against lawns and lawncare should give you a better sense of their true motives. I'm shocked Bayer lost and that the plaintiff was awarded anything. Glyphosate has not been shown to cause cancer. If it had, such literature would be paraded out as an evergreen example. If you want to be afraid of chemical use, it's the overuse of antibiotics that should worry you. Or the high particulate air you're breathing in.
- andrewjl 3y ago> I hope the settlement hits trillions. Burn the fuckers down. Hoping on the sidelines gets you nowhere. Laws need to be changed to end the presumption in many jurisdictions that a lack of safety data equates to a benign substance.
- dymk 3y ago[flagged]
- gruez 3y agoBut roundup has tons of safety data in favor of it?
- monodeldiablo 3y agoBut it really doesn't. What it has is a lot of industry-funded "research" muddying the waters with ambiguous or misleading results. When I worked at Monsanto, the mantra was that __the burden of proof was on those alleging harm__. I don't know about you, but I expect a higher standard from the system that regulates the food I put in my body. Broad spectrum pesticides are terribly complex to test and it should take years if not decades to properly prove them safe for agricultural use and human consumption.
- AngryData 3y agoMost pesticides and hebicides break down from exposure to the sun and rain. The main reason im concerned with roundup is because it has now become common to finish crops by spraying them with roundup so they all dry up at the same time on a set schedule, which means they are harvesting within days after spraying them, then storing that grain in sunless silos with reduced moisture and drying so that roundup never has a chance to degrade. I would have no problem eating something that was hit with roundup 2 months previously and exposed to the elements. But spraying it then eating it just a few days afterwards is just dumb.
- nomilk 3y agoI must confess to not washing all fruit before I eat it. Especially berries. I sometimes wonder if there's any home testing kit to figure out how much chemical residue is on fruit and vege. Easy testing for pesticides/sprays could prompt changes in both consumer behaviour (e.g. preparation/washing), but also buying behaviour (if one farm's berries had less spray than another's, presumably the former's would be preferable to most people).
- echelon 3y agoWorry about bacteria and gastropods. These are the things that actually kill human consumers.
- hinkley 3y agoRinse them with vinegar.
- throwaway1777 3y ago[dead]
- echelon 3y agoGlyphosate hasn't been shown to cause cancer, despite decades of science trying to demonstrate otherwise. Plant and insect biology is incredibly different from our own. We are attracted to many natural insecticides, in fact.
- chubs 3y agoChilli, for instance?
- lll-o-lll 3y ago> not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified genes, that’s plain stupid. So, it turns out this is not so stupid. I’m going to sound a little stupid, because this is not my field, but my sister is a plant molecular biologist. All her research/work is in plant DNA. Apparently it’s been recently discovered that the gene expression for the genetically modified plants was not as had been previously understood. Instead of turning on just one gene, it turns on like five other unexpected random genes. In addition there was something about “complex interactions” and “poorly tested and uncertain outcomes” or something. Any actual experts able to weigh in? Anyway, she’s gone from “genetic modification of plants is a great thing because of improving food security” to “I’m not letting my kids eat this stuff”.
- dathinab 3y agoThere is a lot of indications that GMO crops are much more likely to "trigger" food intolerabilities then older crops. Through this seems to be an issue about them being further distant from what humans did eat for over a thousand years then about GMO being bad per-se. I.e. this also seem to apply (but less so) to crops which used more tradition (modern speed up) methods of cultivating crop variants.
- Ichthypresbyter 3y agoDoes she let her kids eat sweet potatoes? While there is AFAIK no genetically engineered variety of sweet potato being cultivated, every cultivated variety of sweet potato bears genetic traces of having been modified by Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which is the bacterium which is widely used to edit plant genomes.
- lll-o-lll 3y agoI think, to understand her concerns, you would need to be in the field. I’m pretty smart, and I have plenty of layman knowledge, but I’m completely lost once she gets technical. The summary of the issue, as I understand it, is as follows. The modifications do much more than we realised, and the impacts are poorly tested. That’s the gist. It’s enough for me to go “there could be dragons here”, but I honestly haven’t bothered to try and change any purchasing decisions. I think the horse has already bolted anyway. Doesn’t the gmo end up in pretty much everything regardless?
- tails4e 3y agoShit. I remember clearly spraying roundup out of a backpack sprayer on a calm day, when a stray gust of wind blew some of the spray back up and into my face. I often wonder if I inadvertently sealed my fate despite that level of exposure being so brief. It was about 5 years ago,so far so good.
- epups 3y agoYou will be absolutely fine, you really don't have to worry about it. It's very uncertain whether ingesting these chemicals is harmful, touching them briefly is just fine.
- bluGill 3y agoCourts are not judges of science. Roundup is well studied in science and the overwhelming majority find it is harmless to humans.
- lightedman 3y agoThe real concern is with the surfactants used with the glyphosate, not the glyphosate itself.
- wredue 3y agoMuch of the time, cancer risk with these chemicals is based of some level of exposure over time. It’s people using it all day every day that are at a high risk of cancer. One blow back in to the face probably won’t do much more than cause some irritation.
- w0z_ 3y agoWait until you hear about how healthy soy is farmed with 4x the herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc. as regular vegetables. Mmm.
- throwaway1777 3y ago[dead]
- tanseydavid 3y agoRound-Up Ready and Terminator Seeds are two of the sickest inventions that humans have ever dreamed up. The idea of engineering seed so that new seed which comes from its crop will not germinate is just beyond wicked and evil. But we've had that for something like a quarter century now. $332M seems like peanuts.
- BenjiWiebe 3y agoWikipedia claims (not very current claims though) that terminator seeds are not commercially available? They are different than the common case of infertile hybrids, which have good reason to exist and the infertility (IIUIC, not a botanist) is a side effect.
- throw3823423 3y agoThere was an old patent about making generations completely infertile, but yes, never used. Bayer's corn seeds are optimized enough that, while the next generation grows just fine, the yield loss makes it not worthwhile over just buying new seed.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoIts been that way for a lot of crops for almost a century at this point. This phenomenon is called hybrid vigor. Many things we grow are clonally propagated at this point to maintain these hybrid genetics.
- throw3823423 3y agoThis tells me you don't know much about Monsanto / Bayer Crop Science. Roundup Ready is a relatively good idea: Roundup applies easily, and after the first few generations, when the control of how to add the GMO genes was so bad yields were impacted, it's a very narrow change to plants that makes farmers a lot of money. The vast majority of soybeans in the world are running Roundup-ready genes for a reason. Terminator seeds sounded like a scary patent, but it was mostly useless. In corn, for instance, you'd never want to run it at all, as the seeds that are sold are almost perfect hybrids of 2 inbreds, which lose a whole lot of yield in the next generation without anyone really trying. There's no need for a gene when the next generation yields worse naturally. If you want a sick situation with Bayer, forget Roundup, and look at what's been happening with Dicamba, the next generation of pesticide that GMOs are protected from. It's not a new pesticide, but it's very aggressive and it drifts: You spray a field, and many other fields around it are going to get hit. Supposedly Bayer is telling everyone that, on tests, the new formulations of it, when applied properly under the right weather conditions, there's no drift... but reality disagrees. Therefore, a whole lot of fields that aren't planting seeds protected from dicamba are getting wrecked by not-so-close that haven't mastered the really difficult ways to spray dicamba in the calmest of days. We aren't talking a pesticide that drifts 50 feet here, or 100, but people relatively far away that have their crops ruined. This is happening often enough that we'll see bans, while more and more generations of roundup GMO are going out of patent. I am pretty sure that this one is what is scaring Bayer's lawyers, not Roundup.
- dang 3y agoPlease don't fulminate or call names on HN. You can make your substantive points without any of that. Your comment was fine until "well buddy [...] burn the fuckers down". If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.