Uncle Grump.
Totally understand your message. However, let me elaborate a bit more on where I’m coming from. This may get long winded, but please bear with me!!! Thanks in advance!
I come from a long, long line of farming. My whole ancestry from the time my 4 great-grandfathers set foot in this country back in the early 1800s has been all about farming and cattle ranching.
My father farmed and raised cattle, along with his 5 brothers.
My mother’s 3 brothers farmed and raised cattle. I have 2 cousins that farm over 25,000 acres in North Dakota.
My father use to spray herbicides and insecticides for Cenex, along with being employed by the Grain Exchange for a number of years.
As for my father and mother meeting back in the late 1940s, was due to my father’s father and my mother’s father doing business of buying/selling cattle.
Along with this, in my short term of college I studied AG business. I was also extremely active in FFA (Future Farmers of America) and in high school, studied alot on the effects of chemicals applied to agricultural lands, along with “NO-TILL” farming.
Today, I have multiple immediate family either working for Harvest States, Cargill, or ADM.
I hope this secures my credentials on this to some degree. I’m not trying to be a jerk here, for it is not my intent.
However, fact is fact. And current fact is that the chemicals being put on the fields are effecting the current environment. It is proof, there is no dispute. “Yesterday’s” application of chemicals, took approximately 500,000 ppb to kill a rat. Today, it is approximately 5 ppb to kill a rat. These chemicals are carcinogenic. Proof.
Yes, the local lakeshore resident is applying lots of phosphorous to their lawns, making them green. However, that comparison to the amount of chemicals applied by farmers is like blaming our SUVs for making our problems with air pollution. Yes, the SUV (all autos combined) may have some effect, but it is minimal when compared to larger activities of fossil fuel burning when it comes to air pollution.
The unfortunate part of this puzzle is a study I did years back for one of my mid-term papers. It was the “cause-effect” and “what-ifs” on the use of chemicals today on our farms.
In a nutshell, it breaks down to this………
“WE” know without doubt, with solid fact, that the chemicals today are wreaking havoc on our farms. It is creating pollution that our ground cannot filter the water fast enough and clean enough, to make it safe once it reaches the water tables.
That is why today, well requirements keep getting deeper for drilling to stay away from the ground pollution that our water is absorbing. Today, in our area, the Jordan Vein is required for homes when it comes to well drilling. Even though, where I use to live, the water table was only 6 feet down, we couldn’t use that water, for it was contaminated.
On the consequential side of things, if the farmers didn’t use the chemicals, and didn’t have 200 bushel corn per acre and back to 60 bushel corn, our prices out increase drastically. The same applies to all “canning” foods (sweet corn, peas, snap beans, sugar beats, etc). Instead of buying a dozen ears of corn for $2, you would be paying $10 for a dozen. Our fiscal society cannot handle that type of demand and that drastic of a change. It is basically no different than burning fossil fuels. We know it is no good, we know we are going to run out, BUT we have to use it……….
Again, I’m not knocking the farmer. Farming is not only a business; it is a way of life. You have to do what you have to do to survive. Today, that survival is through the use of chemicals.
At the age of 11, my father rented out some incredible land. It was full of pheasants. Must have had 2000 pheasants living on the slough on the land. One year later, there were about 100 to 150 birds. The next year, there was nothing but a couple, maybe a dozen at best. My father came in there with Lasso and sprayed the hell out of that ground. He also watched pheasants eat seed corn, as he planted. The pheasants actually followed the planter and picked the corn out of the ground.
Do you have any idea what would happen to any human, if they ate 20 kernels of seed corn today? I don’t know if you would make it out of the hospital? Today’s seed corn is coated with insecticides to protect the kernel from insects while it germinates. It is a poison that would knock you or me to our death beds. We watched these pheasants eat them……….
It is a common understanding in my family, the effects of these chemicals. We know and have personally seen the damage inflicted by them.
Now, I’m no tree-hugger by any means. I’m not campaigning to get rid of the chemicals, primarily due to the effect that it would have on our economy. However, somebody needs to explain to me, why there is cancer ridding today’s local beef herd. Most people don’t know this, but cancer is commonly found today, in many beef cattle at the slaughter house. I have proof again, for my cousin owns a slaughter house. We were talking about how he keeps seeing more and more local cattle come in that are full of cancer. He never saw this 25 years ago……..
Now, I’m no scientist or expert. However fact is fact. So all my babble here is stating that today’s farming and the run off of chemicals is effecting bodies of water. There is reason why the Cannon River is listed as a highly polluted body of water, where fish consumption advisery is quite high. It is due to the farm chemical run off and the manure run off reaching the river.
Thanks for hearing me!!!
