Never Hillary

[Deleted member 848]

Funny quotes from #bern's college classmates back in the day.

"Why don't farmers just put that black plastic on their soil? That's what I do for my garden and it works."

Teacher: "What constitutes a small farm?"
Student (she was an honors student btw): I think it's anything that's family owned.
#bern: *audible laughing*
Teacher: *stifles laugh, glares at #bern*


OUR TOPIC THIS DAY WAS WATERING TECHNIQUES
Student: "What are those big pipes that go in a circle for? Putting on chemicals, right?" (He was referring to a pivot, and our PowerPoint had a picture of one, btw)
Teacher: "it's for irrigation..."

Student: "why can't farmers just hand pick their weeds? It's so much better than chemicals!"

Student: "you can't farm sustainably unless you farm organically."

All upper level horticulture and sustainable farming majors. They made class entertaining for sure.

i wish i wrote down some of the things my college classmates said before i graduated.

 

[Deleted member 848]

I know. He uses big words and spells things right too.

sometimes

They are "fine" in the sense that we are living with them, and death rates are lower than ever, while life expectancy is rising. That is not to say that they are the best thing for us. Improving quality of life and longevity of life should be part of our goals, but we have to manage that with feeding the starving world.

I'd love to get a serious response from an official from the white house, when asked where "feeding the starving world" ranks on the list of priorities that Prez Obama has. Is it in the top 200?

Without the current state of pesticide use, we don't feed nearly as many people as we currently do.

We don't feed people as much in present dietary patterns. I think we have the means to act more ecologically responsibly.

That is not to say that they should not be improved for safety. But saying that we all need to eat organic is like saying we shouldn't drive unless we can all get a new Benz yearly.

we can agree to disagree. and the joke was pretty funny

 

[Deleted member 848]

Dala, I'll respond seriously this time.

To quote you, "Pesticides aren't good." You made it a black and white issue, leaving no room for grey. So why should I take your discussion seriously? It's the same one I've had with tons of my classmates at school who had never stepped foot on a real farm, but knew everything about farming. And I know, your grandparents farmed. You've been on local organic "farms" (they're really gardens tbh). So you'll forgive me if I'm a little impatient.

My lack of experience with farming directly should be an explanation behind why I hold a given misinformed view-- it shouldn't be used to discredit my views outright. That's a key distinction. Explain what the misinformation is, then follow with something like this. Swapping the order is honestly ad-hominem.

Now look, I don't want to spray pesticides. They're expensive, and many are dangerous on contact. But I'm the person it's most dangerous for, not the consumer. Will you end up consuming some? Sure, but in general, less than 1 ppm. In fact, organic crops have more toxins on them than non-organic...turns out in nature plants make some pretty nasty ****. So I think the dangers are over exaggerated, but hey, what would I know?

- saying something is less than 1ppm doesn't guarantee it's safety. Hormones in the human body operate at magnitudes far lower
- you gotta come up with some examples man. Are you referring to mycotoxins in plants that don't have fungicide applied?

Of course I'd like to guarantee they're 100% safe. You think I want my kids to have to deal with what I do? Let's not act like we haven't made improvements. Hell, 30 years ago my dad was mixing Mercury in with chemicals. You have no idea the regulations that chemicals have to go through. No idea the safety training we have to take. No idea the regulations the farmers have to go through. You think I wanna do all that? Hell no, it takes up valuable time I don't have a ton of. But we have to. I've seen our crops if we don't. I've seen others if they don't. ****, we had late blight last year. Without chemicals, we would've lost our whole crop. Our customers would've lost all their seed. French fry shortage, bitch. Pesticides are a necessary evil. Nobody wants to use them, but we have to. And we do everything we can to improve it. To act otherwise is foolish, and stupid.

I laughed at the french fry shortage line. And I dunno. I just fundamentally disagree with the notion of the fundamental necessity of a wide array of pesticides for crops destined for human consumption. The papers I've read perhaps conflict with those that you've read. I get that you probably don't want to dig deep into papers and studies to justify your point (judging from your posts on this thread), and I get it. **** takes time, and I'd rather not spend hours finding all of those papers that I read years ago either.

Anywho. Watch yourself around those pesticides. And tell ur gov to subsidize crops that would actually improve the public health of y'alls nation while ur at it

 

[RandyForRubio]

I don't often quote papers bc I take them with a grain of salt. I've met the professors/researchers who do the testing. They're nice guys, they mean well, but they don't live in the real world. What works on a plot usually doesn't work in the field. Plus, and it's hard for me to explain, they just don't get the basics of farming. They can't replicate what we do in the plots.

Anyways, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Bruce Ames or not, but he's where I get a lot of my stuff from. This is a good summary. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/...ect-the-health-of-low-income-populations.html

Fwiw, organic crops wouldn't exist, well that's a bit harsh, they would hardly exist without modern day, conventional insecticides and other pesticides. So be thankful for them.

 

[RandyForRubio]

I would love if we didn't subsidize crops tbh. It's just welfare for bad farmers that large farmers take advantage of. Keeps me from buying more ground.

Speaking of buying ground, it's damn near impossible. Can't afford to pay development prices for farm ground, so most of it gets subdivided. It'd be nice if the government, in an effort to at least keep the same amount of farm ground and sustain the economy, would give a substantially lower than usual interest rate loan for young farmers (we'll say under 40) who would like to buy ground.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I would love if we didn't subsidize crops tbh. It's just welfare for bad farmers that large farmers take advantage of. Keeps me from buying more ground.

Speaking of buying ground, it's damn near impossible. Can't afford to pay development prices for farm ground, so most of it gets subdivided. It'd be nice if the government, in an effort to at least keep the same amount of farm ground and sustain the economy, would give a substantially lower than usual interest rate loan for young farmers (we'll say under 40) who would like to buy ground.

I think more than that needs to be done.

Doesn't zoning help with this, though?

 

[Siro]

sometimes




I'd love to get a serious response from an official from the white house, when asked where "feeding the starving world" ranks on the list of priorities that Prez Obama has. Is it in the top 200?




We don't feed people as much in present dietary patterns. I think we have the means to act more ecologically responsibly.



we can agree to disagree. and the joke was pretty funny

We have different life philosophies, I believe.

The way I see it is that feeding the world is a side effect. A pharmaceuticals company creates a drug to make money. That's their main, and arguably only, purpose. Nonetheless, the practice often leads to saved lives.

GMO science is the same. It is part of what I consider a duty for humans to fully understand the mechanics of nature as to control it to their favor. The equation is quite simple to me; safely manipulating the environment is better than just letting nature take its random course. If reaching that goal requires some manageable risk of damage to the biosphere, it's still a goal worth pursuing, as long as we do it carefully.

It is not enough to me to do the best with we have. I'd rather we have more.

 

[babe]

^i read the whole post, every word, and my take away is found in the last sentence where you not-so-subtly call Dala stupid.

I gave up reading whole posts from anyone, including you. What I find is that the last six syllables are always subtle insinuations that everyone else is stupid.

 

[babe]

Hillary is GMO human, I'm sure of it.

 

[RandyForRubio]

I think more than that needs to be done.

Doesn't zoning help with this, though?

It can, yeah.

 

[Miggs]

Dala is anything but stupid.

Glib?

 

[Miggs]

I don't often quote papers bc I take them with a grain of salt. I've met the professors/researchers who do the testing. They're nice guys, they mean well, but they don't live in the real world. What works on a plot usually doesn't work in the field. Plus, and it's hard for me to explain, they just don't get the basics of farming. They can't replicate what we do in the plots.

This is exactly what I've found in education as well. I attribute it to one thing. MONEY.