Posted on 01/13/2009 10:00:14 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Brussels A ban on pesticides agreed by the European Parliament could make vegetable production impossible and result in a dramatic drop of wheat yields, farmers have said.
The National Farmers’ Union said growing carrots, parsnips and onions would be more difficult because the herbicides that MEPs voted to phase out killed weeds that affect these crops.
A total of 22 substances will be banned over the next decade as part of an EU plan to remove chemicals that are thought to pose risks to human health and damage water quality. Fears have been raised of a 20 per cent reduction in wheat and an increase in vegetable prices, but officials said that British farmers would be able to apply for permission to keep using two types of herbicide they need to keep carrot-growing viable. The exemptions will last for five years.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said: “These regulations could hit production for no recognisable benefit to human health, and we are being asked to agree to something when nobody knows what the impact will be.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
In other news, U.S. agriculture futures soared...
“Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said: “These regulations could hit production for no recognisable benefit to human health, and we are being asked to agree to something when nobody knows what the impact will be.”
Just sit down and shut up Hilary, some unelected bureaucrat in Brussels knows what’s best for you.
Bushs fault.
Hilary Benn, meet Carol Browner, Socialist International and Obammunist Global Warming Czar. ...
yitbos
The coming great famine... Better to have their people die of starvation, actually that will help the environment, it will cut back on the number of people polluting it...
(sarc)
Would be nice to mention WHAT exactly is being banned, in an article ABOUT banning somethning...or several somethings. How else are we supposed to know what to stock up on while it is still available?
Oh; it’s Europe, you say? Well, I doubt that Obummer & Crew will let it pass without saddling us with similar bans.
Who cares about famine....without carrots I can’t see in the dark.
Shades of Stalin and Ukraine. Something like 14 million people died of starvation due to Stalin's idiotic agricultural plan. When the census showed that 14 million people were missing, Stalin had the census takers executed.
This is worse than 1984, this is 1934, in the Soviet Union.
If Europe does this, the enviro-wackos in the Obamanation will follow suit. Stock up on canned goods, before they make “hoarding” illegal.
I agree, first they mention pesticides, then herbicides. So I'm guessing one of the two herbicides still allowed will probably be Monsanto and ?
Europe will get its food from Africa, and North America from the South. That way, the globalists can put a gun to the head of the entire industrialized world in the name of "fairness," while turning an augmented profit.
The latter is a subset of the former.
This is what the UK does for every EU edict.
"Hey, we got an exemption" - but there is always a cutoff date when the sheeple will have forgotten who accepted the edict in the first place...:^)
And these chumps want to run the world from Brussels?????
Starvation affects human life too, Gomer.
All shortages will be equally divided among the peasants.
I thought there was already a food shortage and one on the way?
As if the global meltdown and soaring food prices are not enough, now brace up for food shortage in the coming two years.Even as the world is struggling to fight global market meltdown with companies sacking employees and Industries scaling down production, the world will also have to tackle food shortage and soaring prices in the coming days.According to United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the current financial crisis will adversely affect agricultural sectors in many countries, including India and other developing countries.
This warning is issued by the FAO despite predictions that world cereal production is set to hit a new record of some 2.24 billion tones in 2008/2009. Again, global rice production is also expected at 450 million tonnes during the same period.Still, this year’s record cereal harvest and the recent fall in food prices should not create a false sense of security.
If the current price volatility and liquidity conditions prevail in 2008/09, plantings and output could be affected to such an extent that a new price surge might take place in 2009/10, unleashing even more severe food crises than those experienced recently.
The report also noted that most of the recovery in cereal production took place in developed countries, where farmers were in a better position to respond to high prices.In contrast, developing countries were largely limited in their capacity to respond to high prices by supply side constraints on their agricultural sectors.
FAO said the sharp 2007/2008 rise in food prices has increased the number of undernourished people in the world to an estimated 923 million.Lower international commodity prices have not yet translated into lower domestic food prices in most low-income countries, it added.
The FAO report further noted that world agriculture was facing serious long-term issues and challenges that need to be urgently addressed.These include land and water constraints, low investments in rural infrastructure and agricultural research, expensive agricultural inputs relative to farm-gate prices and little adaptation to climate change.
The more critical and likely impact of the global meltdown will be on credit, whose non-availability is widely recognised as one of the major constraints to agricultural development in the developing countries, and the rationing of which is likely to be more serious than any interest rate effects, it said.
Taking lessons from the 1996 Asian financial crisis, the FAO suggested that countries and investors should meet their commitments on the development of agriculture in the developing countries as agriculture would act as a ‘buffer’ and help cushion greater losses incurred in other sectors of the economy.
This marks a quantum change in human history. To quote a great philosopher of the 20th Century:
Carrots are divine you get a dozen for a dime, it’s magic.
Bugs Bunny
Sadly, it appears that those days are over.
Since the use of pesticides began, crop losses to pests have increased, as the natural balance has been thrown out of whack (things that eat the pests suffer more from pesticides due to biological magnification). Good farmers do not need them. We’ll find a way
I’m hoping for a Brownout
.....Would be nice to mention WHAT exactly is being banned,....
The words are long, many strange syllables and hyphens with numbers in the middle. Us common folk probably wouldn’t understand.
“Of course, you know that this means war.” - Bugs Bunny
This has the earmarks of future world hunger manufactured by politicians.
They just need to get all the immigrants and newly unemployed out in the fields, pulling weeds.
They need to import some of our illegals to pull the weeds. Problem solved on two continents.
You’ll forgive if I suggest that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I Know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
Read this article:
Pimentel, D., McLaughlin, L., Zepp, A., Lakitan, B., Kraus, T., Kleinman, P., Vancini, F., Roach, W., Graap, E., Keetonm, W. and Selig, G. (1991). Environmental and Economic Effects of Reducing Pesticide Use. Bioscience 41 (6,) 402-409.
USDA has been whoring itself to agri-business for years and making us think we “need” these poisons to grow food. The Clinton Admin was the absolute worst.
Don’t you believe God’s wonderful creation has regulating mechanisms? Did Adam and Eve spray organophosphates in the Garden of Eden?
You are sadly misinformed.
Figures for loss due damage due to coren doer in Neb.
Final average number of larvae/plant: 50% damaged plants x 4 larvae/damaged plant = 2 larvae/plant
Potential yield loss if all larvae survive: 2 larvae/plant X 5% loss/borer/plant = 10% loss in yield
Potential bushel loss: 10% loss x 125 bu/A yield = 12.5 bu/acre
Potential dollar loss: 12.5 bu/A loss x $2.75/bu = $34.37 loss/acre
Preventable loss assuming 75% reduction of larvae by the insecticide application: $34.37 x 0.75 = $25.78/acre preventable loss
Preventable loss amount vs. total costs = $25.78 vs. $12.00
What do yo expect when you’ve killed all the predators and completely knocked the natural balance out of whack. It’s like saying, “the heroin addict gets sick without heroin, so we all need heroin”
looks like the pesticide producers have you hooked on their products, just as they hoped. I hope you can break the addiction cycle
Please tell that you’re being sarcastic so I won’t think that you’re......never mind, I’m going to be nice today, I really am! And this takes a whole lot of being nice.
I guess didn’t notice the cost of damage without treatment.
Look up crop yields in the 1920’s ( pre pesticide boom years ) and then in the 1950’s and you will see a dramatic increase.
“Did Adam and Eve spray organophosphates in the Garden of Eden?”
Ahhh, Adam didn’t till the soil until he was tossed out of the Garden and then the ground was cursed on his account bringing forth weeds.
You didn’t skip Ag. classes to go to Sunday School did you?
How many acres do you farm, and what crops do you grow?
The Pimental article you seem to rely upon was dated 1991. Instead of the impending catastrophe predicted from modern pesticide management, crop yields have soared. In my home state of Indiana, average corn yields increased from 92 bushels per acre in 1992 to 157 bushels per acre in 2006.
In 1991, it wasn't even imagined how much modern pesticide management would reduce soil erosion. Just for grins, why don't you Google on the quote "If I'm picking between erosion and herbicides, I'll pick the herbicides any day" and see if you recognize who said it.
Herbicides v erosion is a false choice. There are lots of low or no till organic practices out there (eg, roller-crimper).
I like the “MoreBovless” name. Amusing.
I no longer farm, I farmed vegetables on 40 acres in the 1980s, organic before the gubmint stole the word
You don’t really know much more about farming than you do pesticides.
I think you’ve been brainwashed by the agri-business USDA complex. Any dolt can farm with chemicals. It take skill to farm without them (and you;’ll make more $ that way too)
Un-lucky you
Reading about it in a magazine is a far cry from doing it.
wow, you know everything about me, You must be that peeping Tom guy the cops warned me about. Please, seek help now!
You’re not nearly as clever as you think. The fact that you know nothing about farming is evident from your posts.
The fact you know nothing about ecology is evident from yours
Ecology? I spend all day, every day, dealing with “ecology”.
The difference beween farmers and yuppies is that we have to make a living from what we know of the ecology. You, on the other hand, can read magazines and be an expert with no consequences.
you’re more fun the cancer your pesticides cause
OK, my last comment was over the top. You work in your paradigm, I’ll work in mine...
For instance, at 6:00 AM this morning it was -17 Degrees outside; my normal method of providing water to my livestock won't work at that temperature. While the primary purpose of filling the cattle tank with hot water and recirculating it through a heater is to keep my cows hydrated, it helps a whole lot of birds, deer and the occassional coyote make it through the cold spell as well.
Yup, All God’s creatures got a place in the choir..:)
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