What would be the difference in price if Roundup and Bt corn ban

**Tiempo** · #41 03/26/14, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ernie

...We don't homestead and produce food because it's fun to do (it is, but that's not the point). We do it because we don't want to die.

No, you don't.

You do it because you don't want to have a job working for 'the man' off the homestead, and there's nothing wrong with that, I don't want to do that either. But to say you and your family will die if you don't produce enough food is simply silly and rather dramatic.

You would do what you have to do and get a job even if it was unsavory to you.

painterswife · #42 03/26/14, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ernie

Yeah. I love it when people think they are clever by pointing out that my small participation in the tattered remains of an economy devalues my entire point.

It's like stealing a whole loaf of bread from a man and giving him back a crust and saying, "See? You've still got food."

Okay, tell me when a hoe and three acres ever provided everything that one person needed let alone a family in any point in history. That is the basis of your premise. If you can support it then we have somewhere to really start this discussion. Not even the hunter gatherer lifestyle you like to champion ever could survive on that much acreage. They roamed thousands of acres to survive.

Forerunner · #43 03/26/14, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrettyPaisley

Of course I buy corn-gas since I can't figure out how to strap a carseat onto a horse........

Geez. Of all the lame excuses.

Splurge already and buy a buggy for that horse to pull........

jwal10 · #44 03/26/14, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sammyd

You can do no till with many chemicals it's been around since at least the 40's.

Not in 1 pass. Plant, fertilize and spray....James

hercsmama · #45 03/26/14, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrettyPaisley

I'm with Ernie. Corn has been so badly corrupted that we live without it here. Of course I buy corn-gas since I can't figure out how to strap a carseat onto a horse, ...........

A car seat on a horse!!!

What would be the difference in price if Roundup and Bt corn ban - Homesteading Questions

painterswife · #46 03/26/14, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hercsmama

A car seat on a horse!!!

Even better, no car seat needed such strap on a papoose and get on your bicycle and use good old fashioned human power. If there is a will there is a way.

jwal10 · #47 03/26/14, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VERN in IL

Jwal you didn't even answer the question. Wider rows are for soybeans.(no more drilling)

Would it be 3x what it is now?(or higher) Would "large corporate farms" be able to exist, or would they dissolve into smaller farm operations since they will be less efficient on large scale?

You ask a skewed question about corn and roundup and then your first comeback is soybeans. Pretty easy to see where you were going with this.

Costs are different to location, price is what the market will bear. Depending on cost of inputs, farmers will change to more profitable crops. Corn prices rise to meet demand. No one knows what that may be because the government will adjust their payments to keep enough product in the pipeline.....James

rambler · #48 03/26/14, 09:41 AM

Ernie, I am confused by your comments in this thread. They seem very opposed to each other.

You oppose your own comments more than you oppose other people's comments!

Now a problem around here is we start disagreeing and start picking on each other, not on the topic or the idea at hand.

So here I am, calling you out by name......

I really like homesteading, and getting back to the land, and local farmers markets, and all that.

I think running an acre garden for oneself and doing so organically is a great part of life. Some would abhor that, I would guess most people reading this forum are either doing it or wish they could be doing it.

So I am on board with the concept, and generally for it. I'm with you there.

But.....

You seem to feel the world has a population problem, and will return to less than 5 billion people, and perhaps you think that s a good idea. But you also are calling out people that don't have kids, and how horrid it is for farming that farmers don't have large families to pass the farm down to.

You think people should be self sufficient on their own 3 acres, but you come from the typical grew up on a farm, worked in the city my productive life, and now s,owing down back on a small acreage in the country and buy raw materials, sell goods to others to make a few bucks. That sure seems to be the pot calling the kettle black....

You are opposed to chemicals, but making the steel for your knives is a dirtier process than my neighbors raising commercial corn....

You think we all should be subsistence farmers, but if we give every person 3 acres we would run out of land pretty quick; such invidual plots are far lower yielding; and with no chemicals they are susceptible to crop failure due to weeds and insects and fugus and blight.

And other stuff, you seem to oppose your own thoughts.....

I don't much mind at all how you live. And I don't have any personal agenda against you.

But I can't make any sense of what you are saying in this thread. Your one comment always seems to cancel out, or say the opposite, of your previous comment. It sure doesnt make me want to follow your goals, whatever they are!

Either way, enjoy your 3 acres, and your manufacturing hobby, and working with your family. All good things.

Paul

PrettyPaisley · #49 03/26/14, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rambler

For those who want to learn more, most of what PP says here is totally wrong.

By all the science we have available today, Roundup is one of th safer chemicals used to kill weeds. It affects a part of plants that mammals don't have, so it really doesn't 'act' upon us. When sprayed, the chemical bonds very very tightly to clay particles and becomes an inert type of substance so it won't even affect plants. It then breaks down in a rather short 3 week period. Caffeine, that many of us drink every day, has a worse LDL rating than Roundup does. Some folks are very focused on Roundup having some sort of strange effects on humans, but no one can explain what it is they are talking about.

On the other hand, herbicides like 2,4D and dicomba (most dandy lion lawn weed and feed applications have one of these) and other weed killers have higher toxicity ratings.

Some like atrazine persist, or don't break down, for many months. And or are soluble in water, meaning they combine with water and are easily transported with rain and streams. (Remember, Roundup binds with clay bits, it is not so liable in water.)

So........

By all the tests we can do, know about, and so on, we find Roundup to be better for the environment, less persistent, less toxic, than most of the other herbicides we have used in the past, and still use some of today.

There are a few out there, unsupported, 'studies' that say Roundup is really bad for any and everything..... Dr Huber for one has a study he conducted that says roundup caused some new life form to be created and lives inside all of us and causes our DNA to break down. man, that is scary stuff! It makes headlines. That would worry me too!

But this Dr made his 'discovery' over 2 years ago, and since then he has gone on to make speaking tours for pretty good pay. Tho he claims his discovery is world altering; he has refused to share any evidence of these new creatures, or how to find them, or how he found them, or what they are, or where they are.... He hasn't continued his research. He just travels about making speeches for pretty big speakers fees...... Now if he really had something, and really was concerened about your health, wouldn't he want to share and expand his research, and help you and me?

In the past we have had so e problems with DDT, and 2,5T, and a few others. We didnt have the testing, nor the experience, nor the ability to test things to the billionth of a portion as we have now. I would hope we have learned some from the past, and are looking at things much closer.

I'm glad we have choices in our lives, and we can plant and grow and eat what we wish. I don't want anyone to change what they are doing.

But, most of what PP says here is just plain totally wrong, if a person chooses to look into the science of it.

Now, I know this is a hot topic here, and that all I have to say on this. Some folks run on emotion and 'what they read on the Internet' and well that is just how things are, god bless em, we live in a diverse and fun world.

Paul

This commercial brought to you by Monsanto. Run to your local garden center today and pick up a jug and use liberally. We all have to do our part to ruin...er...feed the world !!!!

jwal10 · #50 03/26/14, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrettyPaisley

This commercial brought to you by Monsanto. Run to your local garden center today and pick up a jug and use liberally. We all have to do our part to ruin...er...feed the world !!!!

You are very vocal on a couple of things you do not like, you pick and choose, but yet you eat well from the grocery store. You are saying one thing but your cake is something different

....James

jbo9 · #51 03/26/14, 10:00 AM

Why are the options in this discussion such extremes? There is a lot of ground between "3 acres and a hoe" and "evil corperate farms". Have you talked to any people advocating cover crops? Their goal is generally to no-till farm with minimal chemical inputs, either fertilizer or pesticides. And it can be successful. Will they be thousands of acres kind of farms? Probably not, the management needed is far more intense than a typical farm. But they aren't limited to hoes and a few acres.

A good friend farms about 500 acres, utilizing cover crops, grazing and cash crops to make it work. Crop rotations, residue and organic matter are the primary tools he uses to improve the soil and control weeds.

There is a vast middle ground between the two extremes. Have you talked to any farmers under 40? What are they doing?

jwal10 · #52 03/26/14, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VERN in IL

Bt corn: BANNED

And since BT was brought up in the first line. Why are all the references always about Monsanto. There are other companies out there. Also how about sweet corn....James

http://www.syngenta-us.com/seeds/veg...Crop_Guide.pdf

http://www.entsoc.org/press-releases...nsecticide-use

Ernie · #53 03/26/14, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rambler

You seem to feel the world has a population problem, and will return to less than 5 billion people, and perhaps you think that s a good idea. But you also are calling out people that don't have kids, and how horrid it is for farming that farmers don't have large families to pass the farm down to.

You think people should be self sufficient on their own 3 acres, but you come from the typical grew up on a farm, worked in the city my productive life, and now s,owing down back on a small acreage in the country and buy raw materials, sell goods to others to make a few bucks. That sure seems to be the pot calling the kettle black....

You are opposed to chemicals, but making the steel for your knives is a dirtier process than my neighbors raising commercial corn....

You think we all should be subsistence farmers, but if we give every person 3 acres we would run out of land pretty quick; such invidual plots are far lower yielding; and with no chemicals they are susceptible to crop failure due to weeds and insects and fugus and blight.

And other stuff, you seem to oppose your own thoughts.....

I don't much mind at all how you live. And I don't have any personal agenda against you.

But I can't make any sense of what you are saying in this thread. Your one comment always seems to cancel out, or say the opposite, of your previous comment. It sure doesnt make me want to follow your goals, whatever they are!

Either way, enjoy your 3 acres, and your manufacturing hobby, and working with your family. All good things.

Paul

Your inability to make sense of what I'm saying is not particularly my problem.

I'll try to answer some of your specific questions.

I do not feel that the world has a population problem. The world has an sustainability problem. 2 billion people who think it's ok to poison the rivers, pollute the land, and rape the environment is as much of a problem as 10 billion is ... it just takes longer for it to catch up. The problem isn't to do with the number of people on the planet ... the problem is the way all those people want to live.

NOWHERE did I call out people who don't have kids. Nowhere. That's what some of you decided to try to pick out of my message when you were straining to find something to be upset about. Zealots and lovers of modern society don't usually have to work so hard to find something in my words to dislike.

I myself am a product of this broken world. It does not make me a hypocrite to point out how broken it is, from my broken state of living in it.

Industrial steel-making is as dirty of a process as industrial farming. I don't deny that. But steel-making existed thousands of years ago without destroying the planet, where it doesn't look like we're going to make it even a century with industrial farming.

Now I don't care WHAT other people do with their lives. You don't all have to be subsistence farmers. What you do is between you and God. But when you think you have the right to poison the waters from which I drink and the air which I breathe, THEN we have a problem.

If I caught a man at my water tank pouring poison in there, I would shoot him dead and be legally justified in doing so. But because poisoning is now justified on a mass scale, or if you do it from behind the legal screen of a corporation, or because so many people now don't even recognize poisons AS poison, we have an entire society of poisoners who ply their trade with impunity.

I guess this is my last word on the subject. I feel like I'm casting pearls before swine here.

arabian knight · #54 03/26/14, 10:13 AM

All they see and want to talk about are the few ones that MAY be over spraying. And those are not the vast majority of large farms at all. t is very expensive to spray for weeds, so they use as LITTLE as possible to get the job done. They even use GPS Satellites I have seen that right outside my door.
They take several soil samples and plug that info into the Sats.
And when they fertilizer truck comes in they also plug into the GPS Satellites and spray ONLY where it is needed, some places less then others and it is all a controlled application.
Way less is being used today then even just a few years ago, so to minimize any ran off etc.
This is the wave of the future and is good for all concerned to feed not only people in America but many crops that get exported out.
Want to go small, do it, want to hoe by hand do it, but don't diss the larger farms trying to make a profit in these hard times as it is now in America, just because you don't believe in what they are doing, they are not hurting you, or your neighbor, or this planet.

jwal10 · #55 03/26/14, 10:19 AM

Ernie, you have admitted many times, things have not gone well for you on your property and you take what you need wherever you have to. It is one thing to preach from a soapbox and another to live it. IF you were dependent on you and your 3 acres, I dare say the universe would be short several people. It is a tough world. Sorry....James

painterswife · #56 03/26/14, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ernie

Industrial steel-making is as dirty of a process as industrial farming. I don't deny that. But steel-making existed thousands of years ago without destroying the planet, where it doesn't look like we're going to make it even a century with industrial farming.

Now I don't care WHAT other people do with their lives. You don't all have to be subsistence farmers. What you do is between you and God. But when you think you have the right to poison the waters from which I drink and the air which I breathe, THEN we have a problem.

If I caught a man at my water tank pouring poison in there, I would shoot him dead and be legally justified in doing so. But because poisoning is now justified on a mass scale, or if you do it from behind the legal screen of a corporation, or because so many people now don't even recognize poisons AS poison, we have an entire society of poisoners who ply their trade with impunity.

I guess this is my last word on the subject. I feel like I'm casting pearls before swine here.

Why then would you contribute by buying knife blanks that are pouring poison into someone else's water? Could you not do something else to make money or even make your own knives exclusively from recycled or found steel.

Buffy in Dallas · #57 03/26/14, 10:24 AM

There should be a subforum for ganging up on a member. folks could take turns ganging up on each other. Maybe the alternate odd and even days, or something, where there are no social restrictions for personal attacks. I remember when "ad hominem" attack was the cause for many infractions, but I digress. Anyway, back to the free-for-all. Incidentally, this kind of stuff is why there are so many registered users who never post. Only takes a couple days to know if you got the stomach for it.

rambler · #58 03/26/14, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ernie

I myself am a product of this broken world. It does not make me a hypocrite to point out how broken it is, from my broken state of living in it.

I find this to be the only part of your message I could really agree with, and so hoping to end on a positive note, I can identify with this comment too.

Paul

**Tiempo** · #59 03/26/14, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zong

There should be a subforum for ganging up on a member. folks could take turns ganging up on each other. Maybe the alternate odd and even days, or something, where there are no social restrictions for personal attacks. I remember when "ad hominem" attack was the cause for many infractions, but I digress. Anyway, back to the free-for-all. Incidentally, this kind of stuff is why there are so many registered users who never post. Only takes a couple days to know if you got the stomach for it.

Or perhaps a forum just for people who only have the stomach for being agreed with.

painterswife · #60 03/26/14, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zong

There should be a subforum for ganging up on a member. folks could take turns ganging up on each other. Maybe the alternate odd and even days, or something, where there are no social restrictions for personal attacks. I remember when "ad hominem" attack was the cause for many infractions, but I digress. Anyway, back to the free-for-all. Incidentally, this kind of stuff is why there are so many registered users who never post. Only takes a couple days to know if you got the stomach for it.

I don't think that asking someone to back up or stand behind what they are posting is a personal attack. I personally want to hear dissenting opinions and experiences when trying to glean information on homesteading. I have learnt the hard way that many on this site don't have all the answers even if they think they do, me included.