"The Future of Food" movie

The tractor vs animal for farming, under the conditions expressed here, won't work. If the price of fuel gets to the point where food distribution ceases, won't be any horses or oxen left. They will have been eaten long before!

Martin

Especially when todays crops grown as food many tons are exported to other countries. They is no way no how any animals can replace what is being used today to plant and harvest such huge crops as being grown. Even the small farmer can't farm efficient enough by using animals. Even if and when fuel prices do spike again, it is still way better to use tractor power, then animal power.

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That sounds good, and I would agree, except this isn't simply about 'using modern technology'. It isn't about whether someone wants to use horses or tractors.

If these plants cross with plants we are planting, then we no longer own our plants, we have something we don't want, and we can't save the seeds, assuming they would grow. It does have the potential of wiping out other strains.


Also, since this 'modern technology' is in so very much of our foods, and we don't know the affects it might have, it is our business.

Someone who knows about GMO - does it need more water and fertilizer?

I guess I did not make it clear that while horses would probably be more environmental, I still prefer a tractor.

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

That depends. A lot of the higher yields are actually because of better fertilizers and farming techniques, not GMOs. Certain GM crops will grow better in simpler soils, for example, a lot of RR crops are likely mineral deficient, since glyphosate can prevent mineral uptake to plants.

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

They haven't in the past, because they couldn't.

Do you think for a millisecond that if the peasants could have increased their yields by any means necessary, and not been subjected to regular bouts of starvation, they wouldn't?

In the year 2010, we have the luxury of being against a boon for mankind... that allows one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Famine) to be stabled. Even with our modernity, the 'stable' is very flimsy. A gush of wind from a myriad of sources could blow that stable door down, and all the Horsemen, including Famine would run rampant on the Earth.

Smallholders, like myself, and most of the folks on this board, would be spared from Famine, until the Sword (the unprepared folks that depend on Big Ag) arrived to take what we have away.

While I'm not enamoured of Big Ag or Factory Farming, I'm vehemently opposed to the scourge of the Golden Horde descending upon the countryside, searching for anything that moves, to devour like locusts. So, I actually may be a little enamoured of Big Ag... if it keeps city folks away from the countryside.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

I've done the math and come up with Earth being able to sustainably support about 50 Billion people without using high tech GMO and factory farming. Just good old fashion agriculture.

Problem is you need to eliminate the warlords, politicians and other schemers. People must return to the land and stop moving to the black hole cess pits that are cities. Unlikely to happen so cut that max population down considerably.

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Thanks, Heritagefarm. One of the negatives I have read is the GMO's need more water and fertilizer.

texicanThis may be a bit like - choose your poison - or scourge. When we don't know what kind of effects we might be getting from GMO - that's a tough choice to make. What if we are exposing ourselves to something pretty bad.

Also, who says the GMO's might not wipe out indigenous food plants, thereby causing famine around the world?

What I am afraid of, is we are putting all our eggs (seeds) in one basket with someone else in total control of the basket. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I'm thinking peasants might certainly have chosen GMO's over starvation - but would they if they knew their children would surely die of some complication from the GMO's.

So far, all we have are the corporations and our government saying 'trust us', and a lot of people defending the GMO's, and some people raising questions - but no one answering - only disagreeing.

I did some math one time, too. Considering only the males in our family, from the original 160-acre homestead to present, my share was just over an acre of which I'd since have had to divide in half for my son. With only about 40-50 acres of workland on that farm, several hundred people moving back doesn't sound like a very viable solution.

Martin

Humans are overdue for a 'thinning'. Agree about naming your poison. Without GMO's, you have famine immediately. With GMO's, you might get famine's through the Unintended Consequences clause.

Btw. I plant very very few hybrids. To my knowledge, no GMO stuff in my garden. I am going to stock up on probably two years worth of high production hybrid corn and other garden seeds this fall, and at least two years worth of heirloom/non-hybrid.

My reasoning is if I REALLY need the 'production', as in a SHTF or TEOTWAWKI situation, I want all the cards stacked in my favor... high producing, early producing, drought/disease resistance. This would not be hobby farming, but survival farming, to keep famine away. I'd want to produce enough that first year to ensure survival through the next year. I'd also plant the non hybrids, so I that I could save the seeds. The "extra" years seeds would be in case of a disaster in the garden... fire, flood, insects, volcanoes, nuclear winter, *name your disaster*. Without the second year's backup seed, a disaster will kill you, unless you have backup sources of food. I've got the backups, but acorn meal and cattail roots might get old after awhile.

Walter, the only way I think the Urbanites would ever leave is because of famine. Getting them set up on a farm, with tools and seed and knowledge, and actually survive, right now, while the system is up, would be iffy. A crash course, with the system down, having them migrate to the dirt, without any tools or seeds or knowledge... well, I imagine they'd become compost... Especially since a goodly portion of them have never done an honest days work (real work, where you use your body to make things happen) in their lives. Hoeing a field by hand all day long would weed out all but the strongest (pun semi intentional).

Was reading a recent National Geographic article on Madagascar, about the plunder of the last 'treasure' on the island, by the indigenous peasants. It mentions an old Madagascar saying, basically "better to starve tomorrow, than today". They know they're destroying the last wild redoubts of their country, but it brings them money today to feed their children. Madagascar is dying. Striving as fast as it can to become another Haiti. Haiti is already dead... and the Haitians are living on the corpse.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Why would they, howcome, for what reason would one ever believe that????

Most GMO in corn & soybeans is used to more easily and better control weeds ornsects.

If those are controlled better, one would guess yield goes up a little bit - the plants have less problems, so they will average a better yield.

If they yield more, then each plant likely will take a little bit more nutrition and a little bit more water? But - that is because you end up with more grain.

So, likely to get a bushel of corn or soybeans, you likely use a little bit _less_ water and fertilizer. Tho per acre, you might use a tad bit more - because you are yielding more. Does that make sense?

If less weeds are growing, they will not 'steal' as many nutrients or water from the ground, so the use of water & nutrients would again, likely decrease with GMO corn and soybeans. Not being wasted on weeds.

There has been some studies of late that certain GMO plants are not using certain nutrients very well - as someone mentioned above. That is not very well figured out yet. It can be measured in some ways, but the end results do not support the claim. More study hopefully will explain what is going on. A few wide-eyed folks, like for example the people that made these scare-videos with little credibility behind them, are running with this 'fact' which is not what they are making it out to be. The plants are creating more beans and corn per acre, and farmers have been cutting back the use of fertilizers, herbicides, & water over the past 2 decades. More bushels of grain are being produced per lb of fert; per gallon of applied water; and per lb of pesticide that was done in the previous couple of decades.


Looking at things practically, it would make sense one gets more grain per unit of fertilizer or gallon of water.

As well, statistically, we see we are actually getting more grain per unit of fertilizer or gallon of water.

So, that statement you read somewhere really doesn't have much to stand on?

--->Paul

I believe the predictions are for the world's population to level off around 9 billion, about 50% increase from the present? Although I seem to remember reading 12 billion at some point.

The simple reality is that you can not create one type of corn that will thrive in every single type of condition. GMO corn does very poorly in droughts, it does worse than the local corn that has been acclimated to the area. So sometimes you will be pouring a ton of water on it and still getting poorer yields than you would have if you had planted a non-gmo. GMO is not the panacea it is marketed to be because one size fits all never, ever does.

Patt, that just doesn't make any sense.

Plant breeders come up with 100 different variaties of corn. Or 500. Many 100's of different corn.

A farmer will choose the corn that best suits his needs. Some corn does real well on drier ground. Some does much better on salty peat ground where you need very strong roots & stalks. Some works in a wetter climate. Some is weaker corn but will yield much more on good loamy-sand ground.

Some corn makes flex ears, so it will fit a wide range of soil types - if you have different soil types & water holding all in the same 20 acre field, the corn will make smaller or larger ears to use whatis available. Or you can pick a 'race-horse' type of corn, which will make a large full ear for top yiwld, but suffers more if it gets stressed by drought or low fertility.

Some corn makes more leaves suited for corn silage. Some will dry down faster to save on drying costs.

And then they are sorted by the growing season, from perhaps 85 day corn to 120 day corn. Even longer if you are growing corn in Mexico.... Up in North Dakota or Canada, you need a very short season corn, that gets ripe in 92 days or less. In my part of Minnesota you want a 95-105 day corn. Doen in southern Iowa or Illinois you might be using a 110 day corn. In general, the longer a corn grows before it matures, the more it can yield. However, if you pick one that grows too long, and you get an early frost, the corn will be immature, or very very wet, and cause you problems.

So, farmers everywhere in the USA pick out hybred field corn for the maturity, climate, and soil conditions they have.

All of the above differences are mannerisms of field corn that has been conventionally bred, by trial and error, crossing different parent corn plants. Dow, Monsanto, Pioneer, and about 100 other smaller seed corn companies try many many many different crosses of parent corn every year, looking for now, better, innovative results. Perhaps 3-4 new ones come from the big companies each year, and replace an older variaty of corn.

Everything I've said so far has _nothing_ to do with gmo; it is just regular trial & error plant breeding.


The last decade or so, the companies have used gmo techonolgies to take the above seed, and add in a new trait. Such as resistance to glyphosate (Roundup Ready). Or a bt insecticide that appears in the root or stalk to keep rootwarms or stalk borers from destrying the plant.

These types of gmo traits are added to most of the above different types of corn.

So, one has 100's of different gmo corn varieties to chose from. You can tailor the corn to match your climate, growing season, rainfall, and needs for more leaf, more grain, dry quicker, yield the most....

The big seed companies have huge books of seed to match up all the different situations.

The small regional seed companies have less different types, because they tend to sell corn locally, soonly need the maturity & climate types for nearby.

Those of you who plant open pollinated corn, or heirloom sweet corns, are the ones who are buying from a relatively small number of available types of corn. Nothing wrong with that. But you have a limited selection, and really not much advancement is happening with those corn variaties. I understand if you keep planting your on seed in your loation the corn will acclimate to your location and somewhat improve itself. On the other hand, local pests & weeds will also develop to prey upon that one type of corn you have and be harder on it. Soil orginisms will build up in the soil that will be harder on that corn than if you would change the type of corn you grow from time to time.

Hybred corn, either conventional or gmo, has a lot of time & effort put into it developing specialized, unique, different types of corn to match a particulare climate & need and soil type. There are often many different varieties of corn to choose from that will do well, and switching beween them over time will break up disease and pest problems.

There most certainly is no 'one gmo' corn sold by Dow, Monsanto, or Pioneer! They have huge catalogs of corn of very different characteristics to match up the special needs each of us farmers have.

Really Patt, you are 180 degrees off on this. It is the opposite of what you said.

Hybred seed corn (both conventional, and gmo) keeps developing and changing, with many many different types of corn available depending on where you live. This diversity helps to keep corn yields go up.

The gmo traits are added to each type of hybred corn, there is not 'one' gmo corn......

--->Paul

Since it is easier to control weeds with glyphosate (Roundup) in dry conditions, Roundup Ready corn will typically yield better than non-gmo corn. It has less compitition from the weeds.

Where I live, the problem is too much water, so drought is not an issue. Of my top 3 years, two of them were the driest I've lived through. So drought or irrigation is a non-issue to begin with.

Monsanto is working on a drought tolerant corn with the use of gmo. It is a difficult thing as they explan it, because there is no one thing to do to flip a switch & make the corn grow without water.... However, they have identified 5-6 genes that can help out a lot. They say the corn will yield like normal in a normal year, 175-200 bu per acre. In a drought year in a dry area, where normal corn will become barren the corn they are developing would still produce 50-75 bu of corn per acre. It would deal better with dry conditions.

Of course, that is still to be seen, they are working on it, said maybe by 2015 they would have some corn for sale. We will see.

Your heirloom seeds typically yield 100-120 bu an acre to start with, so saying they don't suffer from drought is kinda misleading. They already are 50-100 bu behind the average, so well below average from the get go. The hybreds and gmos will yield a lot more corn over a 10 year period, if that is the comparison you want to make. I's not even close, Patt. Heirloom field corn has a potential of around 220 bu per acre, with an actual attainable yield of about half that. Hybred & gmo field corn has a current potential yield of 450 bu per acre, with again an actual, attainable yield of about half that. I dn't think you really want to go down this path, which corn will yield more......

Now, I'm not against heirloom seeds. Far from it. I'm all for what you do. I think it's great if you grow your own seed, and make your own food, and are self sufficient. Good deal. I wouldn't bother hanging around here if I thought that was a bad thing! It's good.

My concern is when you make innacurate claims that hurts others. It is wrong to say heirloom seeds produce more than hybred or gmo seeds, or that there is only one gmo seed corn.

I think your way of growing crops should stand on it's own merits, and not have to propigate lies or try to tear down other's with wrong 'facts' to get an edge of some sort.

If your way is better somehow (and it is in some ways), then let it stand on it's own true better issues, not made-up ones.

--->Paul

LOL
GMO is far from "one size"
Ever looked through a seed dealers catalog?

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

I don't have a problem with GMO. What I have a problem with is that these companies can sue for infringement when a farmer did NOT plant their product..... a farmer should not have to protect his field from propagation from other fields. In my opinion... the biggest reasons for companies to release GMO is to force all to ultimately use it.

You got that right. Some seem to think there is one kind and kind only when that is the furthest from the truth. Many different varieties for many different conditions plain and simple.

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That stuff's not as benign as you've been told. Glyphosate itself is fairly benign, but the inert ingredients in Roundup react with glyphosate, making Roundup quite toxic. Anyways, they've come up with organic herbicides, so organic farming just got easier.

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

It's too bad the universities have mostly abandoned their seed breeding programs. Iowa did/does a little with food quality soybeans; but they end up using the same licencing/patenting/sue anyone who saves seed agreement as Monsanto has, so not really gaining anything with that from the puublic dollar.

Organic herbicides. Like spreading corn meal on the ground to stop small-seeded weeds from sprouting. Works, tho it does nothing for already growing weeds, or large seeded weeds, or to stop the 2nd flush of weeds. It's great they are out there, but they work in rather limited fashion. It's not like we can jump for joy, stop using the current pesticides and will get great results from using these limited organic chemicals.....


Most of the stuff we use, from gasoline to toothpaste to the glue on envelopes we lick has some chemicals in them that are not fully studied and can pose problems in certain ways. Apples naturally contain many chemicals that can be dangerous to mamals.

The deal is, if we don't use glyphosate to control weeds in corn & soybeans, we end up using other chemicals. Many of those have a worse track record as to the possible problems they pose.

Weed and insect control chemicals have been used since the 1960's. There were some pretty harsh ones back then.

Glyphosate is on the more mild side of them.

So, if you ban glyphosate, we are left with worse pest chemicals to use?

That doesn't seem like a good solution.

Use no pest control chemicals at all? Sounds good, but not what your side is asking for. And if you one studies what that would do to the cost of food.... It gets real ugly too. Not a good solution.

I'm glad we have multiple options, and can feed people in different ways, from organic to inexpensively. Don't want to see either side banned or done away with.

There is a lot of merrit in growing your own food, and if you have the time & resources to do so without pest chemicals that is great. More people should be involved in their own food production. Tho in this crowded world I don't see it as a practical goal.

Your comment seems to be a plea to stop using the horrid chemical glyphosate because it is dangerous.

If we stop using it, what will happen? Food prices go up, we use different, harsher chemicals, we import more food from countries that have no controls on food safety, etc. Are these good directions to go?

What the debate is all about, I guess. From our first breath, we live with risk. A Fidonet aquantence showed up one day, he was very anti-chemicals, shouldn't have all this stuff in the air, shouldn't have all these toxic things we use. He was sitting in my yard talking about it, as he pulled out his pouch and rolled his own cigarette and lit up.

I guess we see & evaluate risk differently.

--->Paul