This topic contains 7 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by Leif 9 years, 9 months ago.
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Pete, thanks for posting this. It is odd how there is suddenly so much evidence of harm. I live in a farming environment where the stroy has always been "it breaks down in soil, no residues". But I met a farmer in the eighties who became organic when the salesman suggested he spray it onto wheat just before harvest, to leave a field with no weeds. No mention of what it did to the wheat.
I fear there are more stories like this, in food, cosmetics, clothing and farming, and the guinea pigs are humans. Bubbling below the surface at present, for example, are many concerns about the sweetener aspartame. One wonders how these products are ever allowed. and another one for gardeners is aminopyralid weedkiller. That one is thankfully mitigated by being too expensive for regular usage, according to a farmer I was discussing it with.
I am a no dig gardener who does use glyphosate and when you look it up, the effects do look frightening and there are questions to be answered- as with many other chemicals used in everyday life
Unfortunately most thing you research on the net are presented in a biased way- from all sides of any argument.
Have you researched the environmental effects of plastics? They seem much worse than glyphosateYes one of the reasons I got disillusioned with FSC, Woodland Trust, Forestry People etc, they all advocated the use of it!
I don’t know for sure but I feel this is why trees like Ash, Oak, Chestnut etc are all under threat.
I have started Scything around my trees & then putting the mulch back ‘near’ the tree trunk. I have also got new Oaks(& others) coming up from ‘no-where’; very exciting!
A fellow allotmenteer on our site suggested we used roundup for something on our plot. When I declined he told me that I have it anyway as farmers use it on rape & all sorts pre harvesting. I told a friend who posts on several gardening forums & she too was horrified when it was confirmed by farmers that this was the case with several crops. I did email the company whose rape seed oil I buy but didn’t get a reply. I now use a lot more organic coconut oil. I look out for organic rape but never come across it.` I read a really good book that changed my way way thinking a while ago. it’s called ‘We Want Real Food’ by Graham Harvey. A really good read & it explains how & why things changed in farming.
Nice that you read Graham’s book, and a lot about decreasing minerals in food. They are hard to measure though, and I am uncertain of the difference made by rickdusts, though I use them sometimes, and actually prefer lava dust – but it is hard to buy in Britain.
Quite alarming about farming and the reason you cannot find organic rapeseed oil is that it is barely possible to grow organically, because of the difficulty of weed control. I think it is only since the invention of weedkillers that rape has become such a widely grown crop. In an organic world, I am not sure what our plant based oil might be in the UK and there is a case for eating butter! (organic milk is realtively easier)
Alot of things plants, tree seedlings, frogs,lizards, toads started to return after I quit using roundup.
I think the problem comes when chemicals are used commercially on a large scale, and you get over application, and use when it should not be used. I have no issues with using glyphosate on bindweed. It is the only way I can fight the hedge bindweed from next door, since they leave it. I used it to kill my lawn, which was rife with birds foot trefoil, prior to rotavating and reseeding. The alternative would have been buying fabric and leaving it in place for many months or even till the next year. I do not use it otherwise, hand weeding is fine for my veggie beds. I would rather not use chemicals on veg beds. I do use pyrethrins against aphids, and ants, sometimes. They are naturally occuring insecticides, organically approved I think, best avoided if possible.
Glyphosate acts on pathways specific to plants, so I reckon it is harmless in tiny doses. In larger doses it is toxic. There are some far nastier looking chemicals used in farming. What worries me is when the government body said carrots were safe after testing one batch. And these people are supposed to be scientists. Any half decent scientist knows that one sample tells you nothing. And these people recommend you peel root vegetables. Why?
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