We’re fresh from the annual conference of the Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers in Auburn. We spent all day Friday and all day Saturday with commercial growers working to do a better job growing the food that Alabamians need. The conference was well-designed and helpful, but both of us became fatigued hearing SO much about poison. Let’s acknowledge that these are the good guys. These are the conscientious farmers who are interested in staying up to date on the latest information about growing methods, varieties, and practices. They actually read the labels and at least try to follow them. So this is in no way a criticism of these growers are those teaching them. It’s more a comment on the system that controls what they learn, what consumers demand, and how their products get priced, a system that leaves these well-meaning growers with very few alternatives to poison.
Our podcast today starts with our dismay about this system and finishes with the approach we take to weed control and pest control here at Longleaf Breeze.
Listen – 21:52
Here’s the web site for Roundup, the Monsanto brand name for the generic chemical glyphosate. Here’s a description of the way glyphosate works and the damage it’s causing from a former USDA researcher.
With references to herbicides and insecticides generally, here’s a database of research about the diseases known to be linked to pesticide use on US farms from www.beyondpesticides.org.
General Links:
The Longleaf Breeze Planting Database
Join us at the (online) Longleaf Breeze Social
Very informative, thanks. People don’t often think of antibiotics as poisons, but they are. Clever poisons, and useful in certain contexts, but not to be fooled with.
Unfortunately I just learned that the couple who run the organic CSA we’ve bought into for several years are taking a year off. Perhaps they are facing some issues not related to the CSA itself, but it’s not an easy life.
If you experience major, persisting health problems, either physical or emotional, your liver may be congested with toxic compounds that are trapped within deposits of hardened bile (intrahepatic stones). Almost all health conditions, beauty problems and premature aging are closely linked with declined liver performance which is elusive to blood tests.
No it’s not, and as we’ve noted before, it’s shocking how little we pay farmers like your CSA providers for all their hard work and the capital they tie up to grow our food. We don’t sell anything we grow, so this doesn’t affect us, but time after time, Amanda and I have been struck by how little money our farming friends are making. It’s hard for them to compete with the factory farms that use energy instead of human labor. That’s why we think one of the first impacts of a decline in fossil fuel availability will be a dramatic increase in the price of food.