Bittersweet - sold my first lamb yesterday

[Alchemist]

Hmm- herbicides vs. GM... I can't decide.

 

Sorry if this is off-topic - but it isn't as simple as "herbicides vs GM". GM crops in the US (specifically, "Roundup Ready" corn and soybeans) are engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (also known as Roundup). The idea is that the herbicide kills weeds, which aren't resistant to it. That's the idea. Only - weeds are acquiring resistance to glyphosate, so that more conventional herbicides are also being used in conjunction with glyphosate on "Roundup Ready" crops. The incidence of glyphosate-resistant weeds is increasing, hence the demand for - and application of - more conventional herbicides. It's not a trivial amount in comparison to glyphosate. Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready Corn 2” program requires the application of approximately 0.4 kg/hectare of acetochlor (a VERY close chemical cousin of alachlor; the use of alachlor has been waning in recent years in large part because of its carcinogenicity) for early control of weeds (vs 0.13 kg/ha of glyphosate during the growing season). For more information, see: http://www.biotech-info.net/Full_version_first_nine.pdf . Bottom line: use of "Roundup Ready" corn has NOT, in recent years, reduced the overall demand for herbicides in corn cultivation (though there was an initial reduction in the early-mid 1990s, before herbicide resistance kicked in).

 

Of course, "overall" use is a bit of a deceptive statistic, as some herbicides are undoubtedly worse than others. I've seen it argued that glyphosate is about as benign an herbicide as you can find. That's worth debating. Check out some of the links on: http://www.biotech-info.net/herbicide-tolerance.html#corn (sorry, some of the links don't work, but if you're interested, I'm sure you can access the articles referenced through your local library).

 

Of course, using herbicides does reduce tillage, hence loss of topsoil, sediment transport to rivers, with resultant deleterious impacts on the quality of coastal waters...

 

There's no "silver bullet", is there?

 

When it comes to the question of the carbon footprint of "food miles", you also have to consider the efficiency of food production in addition to transportation. The results can be counterintuitive - eating "locally" doesn't reduce your carbon footprint as much as you might think, for example. There was a very interesting paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology on the topic in 2008 that won a "paper of the year" award for their "policy" division. It turns out that "eating locally" is less important than is whether you eat meat, and if so how much of it is red meat - beef has a very large "footprint". (I'll have to go back and see how lamb stacked up to beef). You have to have a subscription to read the paper, but you can see some of the "news" coverage at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es900...archHistoryKey=

 

DH uses this "efficiency" as an excuse to buy asparagus in the fall, against my objections. (He retorts that he who does most of the shopping gets to choose the menu). After reading "Omnivore's Dilemma" and this Environ. Sci. Technol. paper, I'm still working on him to buy more from the farmers' markets, to eat vegetarian several days a week, and to start buying local grass-fed beef instead of the supermarket stuff, though I've discovered that that most of what I've found locally is "finished" on corn.

[Bill Fosher]

Around here, RR corn still works. And the realistic choices are RR corn or atrazine. Atrazine is a powerful endocrine disruptor and is persistent in groundwater, unlike glysophate. It is a real toss-up for me, unless and until the scale of farming where cultivating a corn crop is a realistic option returns.

[Alchemist]

I'd concur that if my choice were glyphosate (+ acetochlor) vs atrazine - I'd probably go with the former. I'm still surprised that EPA opted to re-register atrazine a few years back, given all I'd read about atrazine's endocrine disrupting tendencies. Wait and see if they change their minds under the current administration, I guess. Even acetochlor is less persistent than atrazine (though acetochlor's breakdown products are themselves persistent, and their toxicity has only been partially investigated).

[mjk05]

Sorry if this is off-topic - but it isn't as simple as "herbicides vs GM". ...Bottom line: use of "Roundup Ready" corn has NOT, in recent years, reduced the overall demand for herbicides in corn cultivation (though there was an initial reduction in the early-mid 1990s, before herbicide resistance kicked in).

Thanks for that- it's complicated, isn't it?

We only grow canola (when we have to, along with the usual cereals) at the moment, so have only been comparing RR canola with our existing varieties, and it's not an easy comparison given the current herbicide requirements. I know glyphosate isn't benign, but compared to atrazine I'll take Roundup any day. And I'm not even the one who has to spend weeks on the tractor spraying. Having said that, we're staying non-GM right now.

 

When it comes to the question of the carbon footprint of "food miles", you also have to consider the efficiency of food production in addition to transportation.

Very true. It's a common misconception that "mass market" = environmentally and ethically unsound, and that's not always the case.

 

to start buying local grass-fed beef instead of the supermarket stuff, though I've discovered that that most of what I've found locally is "finished" on corn.

Yep- I think we have to do our research based on individual regions and retailers. As far as sheep meat goes, one of the largest abattiors in my region exports a lot of packaged frozen lamb to US supermarkets (as well as Europe and the Middle East). There are feedlots here, but I think a large proportion of their product comes from producers like us- fat lambs raised entirely on pasture, no antibiotics or growth stimulants, slaughtered and processed close to home to EU standards. It might not be as good as growing your own, but "supermarket" doesn't have to mean rubbish.

[Alchemist]

On the topic of genetically engineered (GE) foods and the environment - there was an interesting news story in the copy of Science magazine I got last week:

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summ...ourcetype=HWCIT

 

Apparently the National Research Council has just published a study in which they conclude that biotech crops are better for the environment, in part because their use spurs a change to safer insecticides/herbicides (though, as I noted earlier, the growing incidence of Roundup-resistant weeds still requires the use of conventional herbicides even with GE crops), and because GM crops enable "no till" agriculture that reduces soil erosion "the largest single environmental benefit of GE crops" (to quote from the Science article).

 

I also just heard that a bill was introduced to the House last week by Keith Ellison (a Minnesota Democrat) to ban atrazine.

[Mona Howard]

I've been raising and selling a few sheep for about 20 yrs. now. It still bothers me when I sell for slaughter.

Somehow I feel like a traitor. Yet, I still do it. Some of my mature ewes I will sell only for breeders or lawn

mowers but who knows what people tell you and then really do with them? I just dropped off a lamb at the butcher's

two days ago. Like Julie, I like eating my own home raised meat. Grass fed lamb that isn't full of steroids or who

knows what. I guess if we all stopped selling for meat sheep would become extinct.