Tag Archives: Agrochemicals

GMOs: worse risk of ruin than nuclear power –Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Because Genetically modified crops risk widespread ruin,
they should not be permitted without far greater scientific knowledge,
for which the burden of proof falls on those proposing GMOs, not those opposing,
say experts in risk and ruin.



Risk management or mitigation may work for localized harm,
but GMOs risk widespread systemic damage, which is ruin, and to prevent that
the precautionary principal is needed:

if an action or policy has a suspected risk
of causing severe harm to the public domain (such as
general health or the environment), and in the absence
of scientific near-certainty about the safety of the action,
the burden of proof about absence of harm falls on those
proposing the action.

A paper by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and co-authors lays out Continue reading

Basics for integrating vegetable and fish production in aquaponics –Pat Duncan @ SOGALO15 2015-01-24

Dr. Pat Duncan, director of the Georgia Center for Aquaculture Development,
Fort Valley State University,
Fort Valley, GA, will explain aquaculture.


300x377 Dr. Pat Duncan with tilapia, in Basics for integrating vegetable and fish production in aquaponics, by Pat Duncan, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 22 December 2014

Safe local food movements are no longer a passing fad as consumers
avoid the dangers and fears associated with processed industrialized
food. Any number of associated causes drives concerns about GMO
plants, pesticides, and other chemicals. With many options and
systems designs available for cost effective ways of safe food
production, one system with unique opportunities is aquaponics.

As with most food production systems, there are twists and turns on
systems and designs to approach the development and management of an
aquaponics system. Ranging from small do-it-yourself systems to
elaborate automated commercial designs, each of these systems
requires Continue reading

Short-term profit misusing technical know-how beyond understanding of nature –Cosmos



Another Cosmos script Neil deGrasse Tyson read maybe he should have paid
more attention to regarding the situation with short-sighted
corporate monopolies misusing cherry-picked science to promote
their profits at the expense of all of us and the only planet we’ve got.

Talking about the fall of the ancient Mesopotamia civilization,
the script Dr. Tyson read for

Cosmos Episode 11, The Immortals
,
says: Continue reading

Honeybee Roulette: Gambling with our Future –Heather Davis

Heather Davis will speak at

South Georgia Growing Local 2014
:



My presentation will be about how I became interested in honeybees
and where my research has led me. It will begin with very basic
information about honeybees and how they are important to our
ecology. Then I will touch on how the monocultures and
industrialized farming,

pesticides and GMO/systemic pesticides are
killing the bees
and our culture and environment as we know it.



I will have pamphlets on GMO’s, how to make your own
pesticides/insecticides that are safe for pollinators, what plants
to grow to encourage a bio-diverse ecology at home for pollinators
and a few others.

She’s on facebook as

Sage Apiaries
, “Pollination is the future of our food!”

Her conference bio: Continue reading

For the Love of Herbs –O’Toole’s Herb Farm

Elizabeth (B) Fraleigh O’Toole, President of

O’Toole’s Herb Farm
will speak at

South Georgia Growing Local 2014
:



This presentation will touch on growing herbs for pleasure, growing
herbs for the fresh cut market and growing herbs in greenhouse
production for wholesale and retail sales. I will cover the joy and
positive healing energy these plants give, the passion of growing
and using them and how I got to this place.

Her farm was featured in the

April-May, 2012, edition of Home & Design
:

“A village is happening out here,” B said during a tour
of her 114-acre farm’s greenhouses, gardens, retail shops and
resident flock of sheep. “If you think Walmart, we’re
absolutely the opposite. Small, local, knowledgeable, none of our
plants genetically modified with man-made chemicals.”



Also on

facebook
.

Her conference bio: Continue reading

Roundup and gluten sensitivity

Likely effects of dousing
90+% of all corn, soybeans, peanuts, and cotton grown in Georgia
(and elsewhere)
in Roundup and other toxic chemicals,
often drifting onto other people’s land, schools, shops,
and churches.
It’s not that hard to grow the same crops without those poisons
and without the toxic seeds that require them;
not that hard and more profitable.

Yes, I know Jeffrey M. Smith is not a biological scientist
or medical doctor.
But many of the sources he cites are.

Posted by MyScienceAcademy
29 November 2013,

GMOs linked to gluten disorders plaguing 18 million Americans – report



The IRT release also indicated that glyphosate, a weed killer sold
under the brand name ‘Roundup’ was also found to have a negative
effect on intestinal bacteria. GMO crops contain high levels of the
toxin at harvest.

“Even with minimal exposure, glyphosate can significantly
reduce the population of beneficial gut bacteria and promote the
overgrowth of harmful strains,” the report found.

Continue reading

Agrochemical drift causing diseases and death in Argentina and Georgia

Pesticide poisoning has rapidly increased in Argentina as Monsanto-seed
pesticided crops ramped up.
Meanwhile in Georgia, 90+% of common crops already are doused in pesticides.
What effects are all those poisons having on our own children and adults?

Michael Warren and Natacha Pisarenko wrote for AP today,

Argentines link health crisis to agrochemicals
,



Argentine farmworker Fabian Tomasi wasn’t trained to use protective
gear as he pumped pesticides into crop dusters. Now at 47, he’s a
living skeleton.

Schoolteacher Andrea Druetta lives in a town where it’s illegal to
spray agrochemicals within 550 yards of homes, and yet soy is
planted just 33 yards from her back door. Recently, her boys were
showered in chemicals while swimming in their backyard pool.

Sofia Gatica’s search for answers after losing her newborn to kidney
failure led to Argentina’s first criminal convictions for illegal
spraying last year. But 80 percent of her neighbors’ children
surveyed carry pesticides in their blood.

Meanwhile,

German researchers found pesticides in all samples of urine
,
and
back in the U.S.A. and Canada,

researchers found pesticide metabolites in 95% of schoolchildren tested
.

90+% of cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and corn around here are
doused in agrochemicals, and even Continue reading

Junk food is engineered to be addictive

This is why there is an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease
in the U.S.:
food deliberately engineered to make people eat until they get fat.
Georgia is not quite one of the fattest states,
but Lowndes County is one of the fattest counties.
There is something we can do, even while Big Food
continues to act like Big Tobacco.

Michael Moss wrote for NYTimes 20 February 2013,


The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
,



On the evening of April 8, 1999, a long line of Town Cars and taxis
pulled up to the Minneapolis headquarters of Pillsbury and
discharged 11 men who controlled America’s largest food companies.
Nestlé was in attendance, as were Kraft and Nabisco, General Mills
and Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Mars. Rivals any other day, the
C.E.O.’s and company presidents had come together for a rare,
private meeting. On the agenda was one item: the emerging obesity
epidemic and how to deal with it. While the atmosphere was cordial,
the men assembled were hardly friends. Their stature was defined by
their skill in fighting one another for what they called
“stomach share” — the amount of digestive space
that any one company’s brand can grab from the competition.



James Behnke, a 55-year-old executive at Pillsbury, greeted the men
as they arrived. He was anxious but also hopeful about the plan that
he and a few other food-company executives had devised to engage the
C.E.O.’s on America’s growing weight problem. “We were very
concerned, and rightfully so, that obesity was becoming a major
issue,” Behnke recalled. “People were starting to talk
about sugar taxes, and there was a lot of pressure on food
companies.” Getting the company chiefs in the same room to Continue reading

Science that’s proven safe by not the very same companies that stand to gain by its approval –Rachel Parent

14 year old Rachel Parent destroys a pro-Monsanto-GMO TV host


on every point, from science to his ad hominem attacks against her.
He twists, he turns, he avoids admitting when he’s defeated, and he loses
bigtime.
No summary can do this justice.

Mat Agorist posted for Realfarmacy.com 30 August 2013
about the CNBC Lang & O’Leary show of 31 July 2013,

14 Year Old, Rachel Parent, Anti-GMO Activist, Destroys Establishment Shill, Kevin O’Leary, On Air

Meet Rachel Parent, a 14 year old activist, who knows her stuff!
This brave girl should serve as a role model for all teens. If 10
percent of children had this girl’s drive and knowledge, we wouldn’t
even be having this debate right now.



In this video Ms. Parent braves the establishment hack, Kevin
O’Leary, and does outstanding. O’Leary hammers out the industry
talking points like the good shill he is and Ms. Parent slams each
and every one. Bravo Rachel Parent, thanks for doing what you do.

If you like the work of Rachel Parent and want to help, please visit
her website at

http://www.gmo-news.com
.

Here’s

the video:

Continue reading

Mutant corn rootworm in Illinois defying Monsanto GMO corn

Mutant pigweed here, mutant rootworm there, pretty soon no Monsanto
pest protection anywhere.

Carey Gillam wrote for Reuters 28 August 2013,

GMO corn failing to protect fields from pest damage: report



(Reuters)—Researchers in the key corn-growing state of
Illinois are finding significant damage from rootworms in farm
fields planted in a rotation with a genetically modified corn that
is supposed to protect the crop from the pests, according to a new
report.

Evidence gathered from fields in two Illinois counties suggests that
pest problems are mounting as the rootworms grow ever more resistant
to efforts to fight them, including crop rotation combined with use
of the biotech corn, according to the report issued by Michael Gray,
a professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois.

Here’s the report,
by Michael Gray in U. Illinois Bulletin, 27 August 2012,

Severe Corn Rootworm Injury to Bt Hybrids in First-Year Corn Confirmed
, Continue reading