HORMONE-DISRUPTING WEED KILLER TAINTS DRINKING WATER FOR MILLIONS OF AMERICANS

Regenerate the desertified grasslands and open up the amount of total lands available across the globe.

 

What new plants do you mean?

 

I can see the advantages of planting native grass and raising buffalo instead of cattle

Particularly up north where the winters are brutal

 

Planet Earth is not replaceable, so the level of difficulty in using significantly less harmful agricultural methods, such as organic or holistic management methods, should not be a consideration in how we farm. It's too easy to destroy land, and we only have a little of it left.

 

Mac, you are singing my tune now! If you asked me what my dream job would be, I would tell you that I would like to participate in the design and implementation of a massive scale operation just like the one you described. Vast international wildlife corridors across North America. I have so many ideas about that it makes me excited to think about it...LOL

 

I dont see planet earth in a death spiral with or without regenerative farming

So that angle does not move me

But if farmers can make more money by working more efficiently it will accepted

 

I dont think change will be that fast

If a few ranchers try it and if it works in real life as well as it does on paper others will follow

And I notice that buffalo meat is becoming more common and acceptable

 

I don't know if the predictions made by alarmists of rising sea levels are true or not, but I do know that with the findings in the articles I have linked to about pesticides in our foods and drinking waters, along with things like dead zones and red tides, we aren't doing ourselves any favors. And when you consider the amount of land that is desertified due to poorly managed agricultural practices, we may actually doom ourselves or at the very least large numbers of our species, regardless of the outcome to the planet.

All ecosystems, planet Earth included, have a carrying capacity, that is simple biology. The more we desertify land with industrialized ag methods, the less our capacity is as a species. Which is why these methods of regenerating grassland soils are so vital. They not only reverse the effects of man's activities, but they also open up tremendous amounts of land for cropping and grazing, or pasture cropping, which is the next level, but I digress.

 

I agree. I will begin my MS this coming January at UW-Madison, and am applying for a research assistant position at ORNL. I hope to, before I die, get some work done that will lead towards that ultimate goal.

I am also following some tribal people who are attempting to bring bison herds onto their reservations, and I have been eating Tanka Sticks lately. They are buffalo and cranberry snack sticks...really good BTW.

 

And I dont know if we are desertifying land in the US because of conventional farming methods

But if better ways can be found they will be adopted

There are lots of new ideas and I am for what works best

 

It should be simple for NA tribes to reintroduce buffalo

It starts with native grass which was there when even the Indians first reached America

The native grass grows best and needs no attention if ranchers do not try to over graze

 

I’m not saying you should drink any herbicide but yes weed killers do know the difference between weeds and humans. There are selective herbicides that “know the difference” between plant species.

Now some insecticides are a little different. They are pretty good at “knowing the difference” between plants and insects but not so good at differentiating between insects and humans.

Farmers not only consume the same food and water as others on average, but also are in direct contact with pesticides. Even though the occupation is in the top ten most dangerous the life expectancy is high compared to other demographics.

Of course pesticides are only one factor in health and longevity but I’m just trying to show pesticides are not as dangerous as some make them out to be.

If health is important don’t waste your energy on pesticides, GMOs, etc. Be sensible and don’t be fat, exercise, lay off the big gulps, etc.

 

We are growing what the consumer wants. It’s always been that way and it always will. Of course the government plays a part but that’s a different story.

If you want bison meat once a week instead of beef, pork, and chicken 20 times a week we can make it happen. Bison meat was a flash in the pan. Nobody will buy it.

US agriculture is slowly fixing the concerns in this thread. But we have to operate under principles of supply and demand.

On bison, read up on Ted Turner, he is the expert. Very interesting. I know a couple guys who neighbor his ranches.

 

Hydro or aquaponics seems to have promise in large-scale greenhouse herbs and leafy greens grow operations, such as lettuce and cabbage. I remember reading about an Australian tomato greenhouse set up with this type of system, except it has a solar field that powers a desalination plant pumped with seawater from about a mile away. The amazing thing about that place is the environment where it is set up is desertified.

I think hydro and aquaponics have a place in the food system of the future, but have limitations as well. They can be costly to set up, and use a great deal of energy and water...obviously. However, overall water efficiency is greater in aquaponics than soil. I really have not read any articles on it, just watched a few videos. Very interesting stuff for sure.

 

Except for the state regulating rainwater collection, but you could still do it with water you paid for in those places where rainwater is regulated.

 

Are you 100% sure about buffalo not selling, because some people on Pine Ridge, SD reservation have been selling Tanka bars like hot cakes, and I can vouch for how good they are. Granted it is a small niche of meat in the general market, it could easily be one of the top sources of meat for people all over North America and globally if we got the prairies and giant herds going again. Buffalo are a much hardier and more evolved animal than cows, and to be quite frank, early Americans missed out on a golden opportunity to design a system of sustained harvest as opposed to extirpation. Sad actually, and to think that Buffalo Bill is an American Icon.

 

Earlier you said you were not aware that the US was causing desertification, but it is actually a global problem.

Third of Earth's soil is acutely degraded due to agriculture
A third of the planet’s land is severely degraded and fertile soil is being lost at the rate of 24bn tonnes a year, according to a new United Nations-backed study that calls for a shift away from destructively intensive agriculture.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...oil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study

 

I hear ya. That is really sad too. I have been overseas multiple times, and witnessed first hand the effects of drinking the water. Even the bottled water in some places will give you the worst case of the shits you can imagine. My entire infantry unit was down with it for what seemed like the whole first month. I know one guy who shat his pants on a patrol, and plenty who shat in an ally because they could not hold it any longer. If I remember correctly, our bottled water standards in the US are something like 5-20 ppm while theirs are something like 200-300 ppm. Not enough to kill you, usually, but enough to make you sick as hell if you are not used to it. The sad part is, the people from there often drink the city water, and I can only imagine how bad it must have been for them, speaking of Baghdad 2004-05. I can tell you some stories about that place at that time that will make you sick just thinking about it.

 

There’s a market but it isn’t going to displace corn fed beef.

 

Good catch!

https://ewn.co.za/2018/09/25/sahrc-probe-into-vaal-river-contamination-to-get-underway

Given the failure to maintain infrastructure here in the USA we can expect to see similar crises all across America.

https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/clean-water/sewage-pollution/

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/when-it-rains-it-pours-raw-sewage-new-york-citys-waterways

 

Changes have to be commercially viable

It does no good to reach higher than what the public is willing to pay for for ideological reasons

I’ve never eaten buffalo meat but I’m willing to try it

If the.cost of production is right and if it tastes good why not?

But we cant just wish those things to happen

Farmers and ranchers have to mske money to stay in business

 

Producers are slowly adopting hydroponics when they can see the benefits to themselves

I will give you one example - strawberries

Farmers used to use Methyl bromideto fumigate the siol between crops

But the federal government has now banned its use and replacement pesticides have been slow to replace it

For strawberry producers hydroponics may be the logical most cost effective solution

Yes it is more expensive to set up

but often cheaper in the long run after the initial ivestment is paid off

 

As I said, improvement in farming practices are a good thing in and of themselves

Environmentalists frame every issue in the most cataclysmic ways they can think of

And that often hurts the cause they want to promote

Show a farmer a better - meaning easier and/or more profitable - way of doing things and they will follow in time

 

well mine are sensitive too, thanks for the info.

 

Harsh toxic chemicals sprayed on crops are a good thing. You don't get grasshopper years like in the nineteenth century when wheat was in very short supply at high price, and farmers went belly up.