organic food or genetically modified
Joined: 25 Jan 07 |  Post #7Yesterday, 09:03 |
Quote of user: Reiman I prefer organic. But....But there are some cases where applying biotechnology is necessary. Here are also some facts: For cash and food crops, organic materials cannot provide the same yield advantages as inorganic inputs or genetically modified food crops. Lets face it. There are fewer land to plant on and the sheer volume of the worlds population is increasing exponentially. We just can't feed so many people while farming on small land areas. Organic materials take months, even years, just to realize its full yield potentials. The amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contained in organic materials are so minute that it will take tons of it just to provide the same nutrient given by a few kilos of inorganic fertilizer. Commercial organic fertilizers are expensive. Most farmers in third-world countries cannot afford them. They are also high in lime which can possibly harden the soil. Inorganic materials like fertilizers act the same way as organic. It has to be broken down into stuff the plant can absorb. Recent studies has shown that using inorganic fertilizers and pesticides (wisely) has no effect on the soil's sustainability. This was conducted in my company and the International Rice Research Institute, and the study has already spanned 40 years. The soil does not become less fertile or acidic. In a nutshell, we cannot totally dismiss the importance of biotechnology (GE food in general) in agriculture. while organic fertilizers may be bulkier, I think most 3rd world farmers have easy access to manure, and they have the added benefit of building up the soil with humus. don't be misled by the N-P-K numbers that suggest manure is less powerful than chemicals. It is actually far better because it contains large amounts of organic matter, so it feeds and builds the soil while it nourishes the plants. This is one of the primary ways that organic fertilizers have a leg-up on chemical ones. Still, many gardeners can't resist comparing the numerical amounts listed below with what they read on packages of synthetic fertilizers. Unfortunately, the values of manure and organic fertilizers in general, are often based on the relative amount of nitrogen (N), phosphoric acid (P) and potash (K) they contain. While these are important elements, "it is misleading to make a direct comparison between farm manures and chemical fertilizers on the basis of the relative amounts of N-P-K," says Jerry Minnich, author of Rodale's Guide to Composting. Just like we need to eat to maintain our health, soil needs continual replenishment of its organic matter to decompose into humus. Humus helps create a rich, moisture-retaining soil and makes nutrients available to plants. Chicken manure Poultry manure (chicken in particular) is the richest animal manure in N-P-K. Chicken manure is considered "hot" and must be composted before adding it to the garden. Otherwise, it will burn any plants it comes in contact with. Dairy (cow) manure "Dairy Manure may be the single most useful soil-builder around," says Ann Lovejoy, lifetime organic gardener and writer in Seattle, Washington. "Washed dairy manure from healthy cows is just about perfect for garden use; it can be used as a topdressing and for soil improvement," she adds. Dairy manure is preferable to steer manure, which has a higher salt and weed seed content. Though cow manure has low nutrient numbers, that's what makes ist safe to use in unlimited quantities. Horse manure Horse manure is about half as rich as chicken manure, but richer in nitrogen than cow manure. And, like chicken droppings, it's considered "hot". Horse manure often contains a lot of weed seeds, which means it's a good idea to compost it using a hot composting method. Rabbit manure Rabbit manure is even higher in nitrogen than some poultry manures and it also contains a large amount of phosphorus--important for flower and fruit formation. Sheep manure Sheep manure is another "hot" manure. It is somewhat dry and very rich. Manure from sheep fed hay and grain will be more potent than manure from animals that live on pasture. source http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm This post has been edited 1 times. The last edit took place Today, 09:32. |
Joined: 25 Jan 07 | Post #8Yesterday, 09:05 |
Quote of user: Reiman Recent studies has shown that using inorganic fertilizers and pesticides (wisely) has no effect on the soil's sustainability. possibly but what other effects do the inorganic fertilizers and pesticides have? Government promises to rid the nation's food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren't doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of local children. The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II. When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found. "The transformation is extremely rapid," said Chensheng Lu, the principal author of the study published online in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. "Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets," said Lu, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children. Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing. source http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/349263_pesticide30.html?source=mypi Artificial or inorganic fertilisers are manufactured chemicals, usually from hydrocarbons or from mining minerals, and were responsible for a revolution in agriculture, increasing yields tremendously. They tend to be cheap and compact, which reduces transport costs and simplifies distribution. They are also easily soluble in water, which means they are quickly available to the plants. Natural manures will add both nutrients and humus to the soil but are far bulkier. To apply 200Kg of nitrogen to a hectare of farmland would require the addition of 435Kg of prilled urea but 33,330Kg (33+ tonnes) of cow manure. The negatives to artificial fertiliser use are that they are usually made from non-renewable resources with high energy input. The manufacturing processes are quite energy intensive. The production of ammonia (for nitrogen based fertilisers) consumes a surprising amount of the world's natural gas - some report as high as 5%. Ease of distribution and cheapness has often resulted in over-use which produces sappy growth attractive to pests and run-off causing environmental damage. This run-off damage occurs when excess nitrogen and phosphorus gets into streams and rivers and causes an increased growth in algae. The growth uses up the available oxygen in the water, killing the fish and destroying the eco-system in a process called eutrophication. Modern farmers, being very cost efficient, avoid this problem by using just the amounts of fertiliser required at the time required avoiding excess run-off which is wasteful. Neither artificial or natural fertilisers add humus to the soil. Failure to provide animal or green manures and compost to the soil, just continued application of fertilisers, will eventually result in a collapse of the ecology of the soil. Lack of microbes who assist our plants in absorbing both the major and micro nutrients will reduce productivity Reduced numbers of earthworms will reduce aeration in the soil, which is also vital for plant growth. Eventually the soil structure collapses and yields collapse as well. source http://www.allotment.org.uk/fertilizer/artificial-fertilizers.php i don't care for pesticides at all, they are just too dangerous, i would rather rely on gmo crops, which i feel are not near as harmful, if harmful at all. AN alternative to pesticides , are some of the genetically modified crops like BT CORN To transform a plant into a GMO plant, the gene that produces a genetic trait of interest is identified and separated from the rest of the genetic material from a donor organism. Most organisms have thousands of genes, a single gene represents only a tiny fraction of the total genetic makeup of an organism. A donor organism may be a bacterium, fungus or even another plant. In the case of Bt corn, the donor organism is a naturally occurring soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, and the gene of interest produces a protein that kills Lepidoptera larvae, in particular, European corn borer. This protein is called the Bt delta endotoxin. Growers use Bt corn as an alternative to spraying insecticides for control of European and southwestern corn borer. source http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef130.asp I'm not saying inorganic fertilizers and pesticides aren't necessary at the moment, it's just that they have associated risk, as far as inorganic fertilizers they are very easy ways to prevent runoff from damaging river and ocean ecosystems, like marshes or wetlands that will act like a filter for the nutrients . but i feel pesticides are too dangerous and can possibly cause genetic damage for you and your future generations, for example did you know vx gas in an organophosphate which allot of pesticides used in America are also? heres a list of some parathion, malathion, methyl parathion, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, dichlorvos, phosmet, tetrachlorvinphos, and azinphos methyl. Dr. Jacob Matthews, a chemist at the Plant Protection Laboratories of Imperial Chemical Industries was investigating a class of organophosphate compounds (organophosphate esters of substituted aminoethanethiols). Like the earlier investigator of organophosphates, Dr. Schrader, Dr. Ghosh found that they were quite effective pesticides. In 1954, ICI put one of them on the market under the trade name Amiton. It was subsequently withdrawn, as it was too toxic for safe use. The toxicity did not go unnoticed - samples of it had been sent to the British Armed Forces research facility at Porton Down for evaluation. After the evaluation was complete, several members of this class of compounds would become a new group of nerve agents, the V agents. The best known of these is probably VX source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organophosphate hopefully in the future, (GMO) genetically modified organisms will do away with the need for pesticides altogether. This post has been edited 2 times. The last edit took place Today, 09:35. |
Joined: 25 Jan 07 | Post #10Today, 08:10 |
Quote of user: Vexxer Also bad monkey i do agree with you on the effects of pesticides and other chemicals used on and in our crops, but is that not a totally different topic....unless the plant's DNA has been modified to prevent pests or some sort of disease it is not genetically modified because non of the genetics of the plant have been changed through the use of pesticides. Im not sure if you touched on that in your post, as I found it hard to follow do to the double spacing and the small amount of words in reach line. to open peoples eyes to the benefits of genetically modified crops, you kinda have to talk about pesticides, because of some (GMO)s genetically modified organism ability to make pesticides obsolete. sorry if my post was hard to read, hopefully this one will be better here's my example of one of the (GMO)s that has made pesticide for this particular pest pointless Quote of user: bad_monkey i don't care for pesticides at all, they are just too dangerous, i would rather rely on gmo crops, which i feel are not near as harmful, if harmful at all.AN alternative to pesticides , are some of the genetically modified crops like BT CORN To transform a plant into a GMO plant, the gene that produces a genetic trait of interest is identified and separated from the rest of the genetic material from a donor organism. Most organisms have thousands of genes, a single gene represents only a tiny fraction of the total genetic makeup of an organism. A donor organism may be a bacterium, fungus or even another plant. In the case of Bt corn, the donor organism is a naturally occurring soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, and the gene of interest produces a protein that kills Lepidoptera larvae, in particular, European corn borer. This protein is called the Bt delta endotoxin. Growers use Bt corn as an alternative to spraying insecticides for control of European and southwestern corn borer. source http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef130.asp |
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