Posted on 08/14/2008 7:56:34 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot
Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster".
"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said.
Snip.."If they think this is the way to go....we [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I knew he was still around. An Iowa boy who made good in Minnesota.
The royal gene pool is getting a bit stagnant....
My favorite tagline, below.
(#2 “Nuke Canada”; just kidding, good neighbors to the North)
If he had just said that we shouldn’t raid world food production/consumption by burning thousands of acres of engineered corn in cars I could agree with him.
That was true 200 years ago. Today it is positively septic.
Liz gets a cold and the Empire shudders!
All sorts of rumors about his sexual misconduct and supposed VD circulated during his life (and after his death) - he was even put forward as a possible Jack the Ripper suspect. But the only problem we can confirm for sure is that he was borderline retarded -- most likely because he was born 2 months premature. He would have made a rotten king on that account.
Charles can't claim mental retardation as an excuse -- he's just a twit.
Interesting side note:
A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world is scheduled to open this week in a mountain on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean.
Dubbed the “Doomsday Vault,” the seed bank is considered the ultimate safety net for the world’s seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.
The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole. Building began last year, and the vault is scheduled to open officially Tuesday.
“degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness”
There you have it! Charles has been ghost writing Obama’s speeches. Who knew?
Every time that man opens his mouth I am thankful that his royal position is mainly ceremonial. What an utter airhead!
We've just been through a Japanese beetle invasion that is slowly and relentlessly moving westward. They are very destructive, get into corn silk which prevents pollination. To counter them, they are spraying with new chemicals. There is a new class of neocontinids (sp?) containing, for one, imidacloprid. I have seen the destructive effects of the residual effects on a bumblebee and wasplike insect, definite disorientation and probably death. I don't need a scientific study to make the connection, and if I ever feel driven to use that chemical again, will cut off blossoms. They suspect something about the coating of corn seeds is systemic which carries through to the pollen. I've barely scratched the surface and have to admit my shortcomings and inabilities in doing a truly scientific study.
But this is just one pest. Roses are an ornamental crop and industry. We can get along without them. But when food crops, GM crops now, are affected, maybe we had better open our minds a little and not stick to narrow agendas. No, I don't presume to have the answers, just more questions.
Jap beetles have now made inroads in the Pacific northwest. It doesn't take rocket science to see that they will make their way into CA. If they come from the north, it will be the grape crops. Then the fruit crops in the valleys as they have a preference for certain plants over others. There is no really safe way of eradicating them and no natural predators. If we import the wasps, then we are taking another risk. The U of MI has started giving out on an experimental basis for people to try in their gardens adult beetles innoculated with a disease they spread from one to another. No one knows the unintended consequences that could cause.
I did grow cherries for years. I never treated them with anything, bumper crops almost every year. They were specially bred, but I doubt by genetic manipulation, but I don't know for sure, in Minnesota for their cold hardiness. Finally my two trees died, and I replaced them with another variety, don't know how that is going to be, managed to keep most of the beetles off them; they prefer the newest leaves. I never sprayed my apples, lose most of my wonderful apricots to late frosts, and usually the apples are wormy, a few good years. And so it goes. Going straight organic is not easy in the midwest. I've finally resorted to spraying on a limited basis, being careful to gather information on products I choose and their potential effects on the environment.
My only beef with the environmentalists is using it for a political agenda which may be based on false assumptions and conclusions. We are all in this together whether we like it or not. It has always been so.
I'm also 4th gen & 5th gen of a couple of first cousin marriages, some of the lines seem tainted with a particular disorder but no way to prove a link, way above average intelligence though in some descendants, so haven't drawn any specific inclusions one way or the other. Obviously too much of that does have deleterious effects on offspring.
Charles, Charles, Charles...
Any farmers out there?
Someone told me recently that if an ear of corn were picked from a field that the seeds on the ear would never germanate and grow. Is this true?
The person who told me this said that it was so that the sead companies could prevent farmers from harvesting and saving seeds to grow future crops.
If so, then this may not be as whacked out as it appears on the surface.
Please read my post 33. Do you have any info?
I read 25 posts and no one asked but I’ll admit ignorance and look it up.....
” A conurbation is an urban area comprising a number of cities, large towns and larger urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area. It is thus a polycentric form of agglomeration. In most cases, transportation has developed to link areas within the conurbation, to create a single urban labour market or travel to work area.[1]”
Nice hat,needs to be a little pointier though...
As the old Spy Magazine used to call Charlie boy and his friends: “Upper Class Twit Of The Week”.
Not much, but tend to think it is true, another area I need to investigate more fully. I can tell you that there are two farms in the family. I asked if GM seeds were used. Yes, but he didn't jump right on the bandwagon, read up on it. Says they are very effective in inhibiting the corn borer resulting in higher yields.
As to inhibiting germination, I believe that is true, need to look into that more thoroughly. Believe you have to buy fresh seed every year from the corporations, can't replant your own like farmers used to do, saving the best ears for next year's seed. There are some companies on the web that sell heirloom seeds, haven't seen anything about corn and soybeans, our primary crops here.
As a kid I noticed the odd color on a bag of soybeans in the barn, nibbled on one, didn't hurt me. I only asked why they were coated. That part wasn't answered, but was told they were seed for the following year and you shouldn't eat them.
I will ask more questions, but it's going to take awhile so probably won't be able to get back to you on that. In any case, if I decide I don't want to be party to it, I'm going to have a battle on my hands, and we're small potatoes compared to those who are now farming acreages numbering into the thousands.
I'm reasonably certain we don't use crop dusting planes, but have relied on heavy use of pesticides in the past. Farming methods are intensive now. We don't rotate crops as much as we used to, called monoculture, bulldozed most of the trees so the machinery can get into and out of the fields more efficiently. Plus I know the water table has dropped. Some fresher surface wells remain, but my father had to go really deep with our last well. The water stinks of sulphur (that rotten egg odor). The house reeks when laundry is being done, it's awful to drink; many use filters to make it so they can stand to drink it. It wasn't that way when I was young. I don't necesarily see a relationship with the water, have always depended on rain, do not irrigate, do use tile to drain fields. I'm 2nd gen off the land.
Here's what got me onto the other (it's just opinion, may or may not be a causal relationship): LAT opinion piece - The loss of billions of bees raises questions about our pesticide controls
I can tell you that many annual and perennial ornamental plants are relatively pest-free, problem with powdery mildew on some. I do save and replant seeds with mixed results, some didn't get pollinated and don't germinate for me. I've had some marigolds and alyssum going for 3-4 years now from which I save the seeds. Last year I grew a lot of tomatoes I got on ebay, wanted Big Boy, got cherry. Yield was good, and have many volunteers in that strip so know that they germinate ok following year, but the tomatoes dried up at the bottom and quit producing too early even though I used a huge soaker hose. Small producers can do their own pollinating by tickling each blossom, wouldn't be practical for large growers.
Please ping me if you find any more info wrt your post #33.
DDT: spray here, spray now
What do you mean the seeds will not grow? When the crop is ready, you harvest. And any corn planted today is hybrid seed, unless you are a home gardener and prefer the open-pollinated. And hybrid seed by nature will not reproduce true to the parent. So what are you saying?
BTW in my state they are making signs with pictures for tourists/travelors to use, identifying things like- this is a hay bale, this is a tractor etc. Trying to replace the “milk comes from the grocery store” mentality.
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