Yes and no. Farmers are actually a very powerful political force in most countries (it’s one of the reasons agricultural subsidies exist). But they never learned to use their voice. They could drive change if they wanted to. They could (for example), if they got their act together, petition the government to ban all pesticides for routine use (you’d want an exclusion clause for licenced, one-off emergencies). They would have to switch over to all-natural methods, but that law would exclude 90% of foreign imports without (AFAIK) breaking any international trade laws. Local growers would control most of the market and would be making money hand-over-fist. It would also give a huge boost to the chemical-free food market worldwide, because a select few would suddenly be getting huge additional demand from this tiny country that nobody ever heard of.
But they won’t do that, because they’re convinced that they have to use pesticides. I had an interesting conversation with a Thai national the other day, who was terribly upset by the environmental devastation in his home province (Chiang Mai). Apparently, the farmers there spray so much shit that you can barely breathe. The soil - and a lot else besides - is dead. Yet they keep doing it. Nobody stops to think: “This is madness. It isn’t working. Maybe we should do something else”. Why? He didn’t know the answer, but it seems to me there needs to a push from outside: either education, to explain to farmers that this is not the correct method for the tropics, or (enforced) legislation. Preferably both.
What we have here is one of many examples one could cite to show that humanj power has supassed human knowledge. That is to say, humans have the power to develop means/tools that are destructive or have destructive side-effects, but they make use of those means/ tools as if there was no problem with their destructive qualities.
What is this power? As related to the situation you mentioned here, it includes the power to create poisons on a large scale, the power to build the insfrastructure and machines, and to prepare the fuel needed, to transport those poisons, as well as the technological power to widely spread propaganda and persuade people with no or limited education to use said poisons on a large scale - all this apparently without anybody in the chain understanding the destructive consequences of these actions or, in those cases where one might find evidence of some understanding, the belief that the pursuit of financial gain adequately compensates for any negative consequences.
As a result of this mismatch it looks increasingly likely that in the medium term a dramatic reduction of the human population will occur, caused by the biosphere becoming ever more unsuitable for human life. One could therefore argue that all this is part of a natural process…
Of course, on a personal level i don’t like poison induced sickness, and so i take local countermeasures, such as growing part of my own food and getting the other part from likeminded local sources. As regards the larger picture, aside from speaking out (and in the process hoping to be able to give moral support to people like yourself), i don’t have the power to make any decisive changes that would counteract the mess i see - and perhaps that is good as it is, because, being human myself, i have no way of knowing whether what i would do if i had the power might perhaps have bad consequences in other ways.
Yup, and that is one of the most used justifications for doing nothing around the world as well
They gotta eat, i get that. however when they knowingly poison people to make militarily a few thousand more nt a month, it is inexcusable.
Ignorance is a poor excuse in the case of public safety and health. for one this shit is going to cost the country LOTS of money in health insurance long term.
Lots of illegal shit is being imported here, who is to blame? I think farmers and the d-bags involved with the trafficking/manufacture would the prime suspects. like a killer blaming the gun maker for his shooting people to rob them. he’s gotta eat too.
AG industry is big in Taiwan, and there are all shades of people especially people you likely dont really want to mingle with. no secret and there be lots of bad things used in food industry here. look at what has been found already, and look at people attitude about it, they dont care at all. The lack of will to fight for things in our species is rather puzzling to me. people are poisoning people knowingly, and no one seems to really think on it.
smart farming makes more money anyway, long term monocrops with heavy salt uses in the forms of —cides and fertilizers — make shit money. literally. polycrop and doing things even half way decent make WAY more money in even a 5 year run.
it is entirely about greed, laziness and ignorance.
Yes, unfortunately, a common reason for doing something these days is “because we can”. Even worse than that - as per the AGW threads - there are an awful lot of people who continue to support whatever-it-is simply because we’re already doing it. Thus, when people discover that pesticides or fertilizers actually don’t work very well, or that the negatives outweigh the positives, they assume it’s because they’re not using enough of them. Despite everybody crowing about “science” these days, very few people apply the scientific method in real life, as in: Does this technology work as the theory predicts? No. Therefore the theory is wrong; let’s see if we can develop a better one.
But I think there is some cause for hope, because by the same mechanism, once a good idea gains traction, people will run with it. Back in Devon, where my family are based, there is a very strong local self-sufficiency/locavore/organic-farming movement. It’s not just a hobby for hippies and middle-class twits; it’s ordinary people who would normally shop at Tesco. The farmers’ market, which sells chemical-free produce from smallholders, is popular enough that their prices are now the same as (or less than) the supermarket. This doesn’t surprise me in the least - I’ve done a lot of research on the economics of natural farming and in theory the cost difference (compared to the traditional, destructive methods) is de minimis, as long as appropriate marketing structures are in place.
I dunno. Once you shrug and say, yeah, well, what ya gonna do - the assholes have won. And anyone fighting against this sort of crap will inevitably stop and think, “but what if I’m doing it wrong?”. That’s a good thing if it means you evaluate your progress with scrupulous honesty, but it shouldn’t become an excuse for doing nothing. I’ve spent the last few years researching and experimenting, and I’m now at the point where I think I can do this on a commercial scale. Will I do harm? No; I have no doubt on that question. I took a piece of land that had been devastated by years of mismanagement and made it productive again in a shorter time than I ever thought possible. I can do that again, and I can show other people how to do it, and they can show other people. Just because you’re one person doesn’t mean you can’t do something; there are always other people who you can team up with.
[quote=“Pingdong”]gasses are used a lot to ripen many fruit in many countries. not sure about health, but its industry standard. all mangoes here are like that as well, usually use a rock. forget the chinese name, but everyone here knows it.
Oh, sure, JA (“Japan Agriculture”, the nationwide and government run AgroCoop) is not interested, but Japan has more of an underground opposition (to official rules about anything, from agriculture to education) than most people suspect (since the media is generally asleep one needs to carefully search for such information). And, speaking about us here on Ishigaki Island, living in a somewhat remote countryside area means we have many opportunities and the space to do healthy things that people in the capital don’t have. I don’t think the future of human cicvilization is found in the cities.
we should likely note that AG extensions have lots of free info, even on organics. It is usually the farmers themselves that just go for quick bucks. new generations will grasp it, old generations likely wont embrace it. but there are LOTS of “crazy old organic permaculture” type nuts in Taiwan. An interesting observation is how good they are at growing their stuff at their home gardens only to go to their plot of poison for an income.
