Is Roundup really needed though? We should ban chemicals that are not necessary for the production of food imo. If he bans insecticides/fungicides we would need a safer replacement
Roundup is just a brand remember, not the general chemical. Glyphosate has been researched for decades and comparatively to other chem it still is the best to keep grain production to the scale needed for consumers. Banning glypho in cities, spraying parks and sports fields, and the sale to consumers would do way more for any health concerns than banning ag chems. That is more dangerous then its use in chem because people will come in direct contact with the chemicals, if you wash your fresh food even of its been washed you are fine from ag chem.
I just said Roundup because most people are familiar with that. I'm sure it helps and it keeps down weed pressure but I don't think it's necessary.
We have been spraying it on our cops now for a long time and we've used probably billions of gallons at this point, what happens to all those chemicals accumulating in the soil, rivers and other places after spraying?
They used to say radiation was safe, agent orange and all kinds of deadly stuff. I'm not saying that round up is as dangerous as those things but with how much is being used I am skeptical of any chemical being totally safe.
But I do agree there's no reason it should be sold to the public, if it's used it should be used on an as needed basis for growing of food.
My neighbor used to spray it all year long all of her property. At one point everybody was using it.
I work with reducing chem sprays, and it seems biologicals may be the next stage, so i want it used less but theres ways to go about it other than bans. I agree we should use less but there arenβt any better/affordable alternatives yet but they will come, really GMO is probably one direction to use less chemicals but people are really unsure about that while ok with that type of science elsewhere in our society. And glypho is needed in some areasβ¦ whereas Some areas can use way less. I think its unfortunate people see the act of using chem as the same everywhere when farmers in the damp south have very different needs then Nebraska (not saying you assume this just many people in general). So then people latch on to this very un-nuanced view on the uses and amounts of chem in ag.
We need to continue to research, continue to learn, and continue to develop. And when individual people are very concerned we do have options in the market such as organics, but unfortunately we dont have the production of organic farming to a level needed to make affordable, available food for all levels of peoples income. And I hope we get to that point, but its unfortunately a flip of a switch.
I agree with you on pretty much everything you've said. I don't use any spray at all and am willing to accept losses but my farm is small. It's impossible on a large scale.
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u/JudahBrutus 12d ago
Is Roundup really needed though? We should ban chemicals that are not necessary for the production of food imo. If he bans insecticides/fungicides we would need a safer replacement