Real Pickles

Originally posted by sasquatch672
You should pick up a newspaper sometime. I call mass civil unrest in one European capital, 25% unemployment in Europe's fourth-largest economy, and open discussion of the dissolution of the euro crumbling. So does the liberal-leaning Economist.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
You should pick up a newspaper sometime. I call mass civil unrest in one European capital, 25% unemployment in Europe's fourth-largest economy, and open discussion of the dissolution of the euro crumbling. So does the liberal-leaning Economist.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am not surprised. All you have ever been interested in is pushing your agenda without any supporting argument. You are so convinced that industrialization is bad that you refuse to see any good in it and you are easily fooled by anyone saying they are anti-establishment - even when, in reality, they are just an alternative establishment.
The very fact ...[text shortened]... est in what other people may say in opposition to your views tells us a lot about your position.

Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional farming on the same amount of land. A new study from the University of Michigan refutes the long-standing assumption that organic farming methods can't produce enough food to feed the global population. The researchers found that yields in developed countries were almost equal between organic and conventional farms, while food production in developing countries could double or triple by going organic. The study also found that equal or greater yields could be accomplished using existing quantities of organic fertilizers, and without putting more farmland into production. Ivette Perfecto, of U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment, said the idea that people would go hungry if farming went organic is ridiculous. "Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted in land grant institutions, with a lot of influence by the chemical companies and pesticide companies as well as fertilizer companies—all have been playing an important role in convincing the public that you need to have these inputs to produce food," she said. JULIA WHITTY

...But the next time someone facilely insists that the "future of farms is industrial," ask what the plan is regarding phosphorous. Developing an agriculture that's ready for a phosphorous shortage means a massive focus on recycling the nutrients we take from the soil back into the soil—in other words, composting, not on a backyard level but rather on a society-wide scale. It also requires policies that give farmers incentives to build up organic matter in soil, so it holds in nutrients instead of letting them leach away (another massive problem stemming from our reliance on abundant NPK). Both of these solutions, of course, are specialties of organic agriculture.

...If such trends continue, no amount of Monsanto wonderseeds, even if they do pan out on their promises to increase crop yields, will put a dent in global hunger. The solution to the growing global food crisis will not be technical; it will be social and political. The Oxfam report offers a good start: The World Bank, which operates under the leadership of a president chosen by the US, should stop financing dodgy land deals in the global south—as it has been doing—and start advising the governments of low-income, food-insecure countries to set up strict protections for smallholder farmers. Further, Oxfam advises, the World Bank should cajole low-income nations to insist that any land deals be structured to ensure that local food security is enhanced by them.

Normally, I think, the World Bank would ignore such advice. But new president Jim Yong Kim, whose work in Haiti will have taught him the danger of obliterating domestic farms in the name of free markets, just might listen.

http://ecowatch.org/2012/ten-ways-monsanto-and-big-ag-are-trying-to-kill-you-and-the-planet/

Energy-intensive industrial farming practices that rely on toxic chemicals and genetically engineered crops are not just undermining public health, they’re destroying the planet.

Here’s how:

1. Generating massive greenhouse gas pollution (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide) and global warming, while promoting false solutions such as industrial biofuels, so-called drought-resistant crops, and genetically engineered trees
2. Polluting the environment and the soil-food web with pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and persistent toxins, including dioxin
3. Draining and polluting wetlands and aquifers, turning farmland into desert
4. Poisoning wells and municipal drinking water, lakes, and rivers
5. Chopping down the rainforests for monoculture GMO crops, biofuels and cattle grazing
6. Increasing the cost of food, while reducing nutrition and biodiversity
7. Spawning pesticide-resistant superbugs and weeds, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria
8. Generating new and more virulent plant, animal and human diseases
9. Utilizing wasteful fossil fuel-intensive practices and encouraging the expansion of natural gas fracking and tar sands extraction (which destroy forests, aquifers, and farmland)
10. Stealing money from the 99 percent to give huge subsidies to the 1 percent wealthiest, most chemical and energy-intensive farms and food producers

It’s not enough to stop eating genetically engineered food. If we want a liveable planet we’ve got to boycott all factory farmed food and make the great transition from energy and chemical-intensive agriculture to a relocalized and organic system of food and farming. The world according to monsanto is a recipe for disaster. Monsanto and Big Ag contaminate every link in the food chain, threatening the very foundation of life—living nutrient-rich soil, clean water, resilient crops, healthy animals, stable climates, and diverse food sources. The good news is that agro-ecological and organic methods can reverse this threat and sustain food production for future generations, but we don’t have much time to turn things around.