Originally Posted by
gosmsgo
Roody -
I learned quite a bit about organic farming....enough not to buy organic produce. I also learned quite a bit about IPM although I doubt that you know what that is. The problem is that scientists know and understand these things. They know it from the molecular level on up. Hence why I know more about these things than any of the other passionate people on here. Once you have a good level of understanding about these things you are less likely to be scared of them. Also, once you understand the shortcomings of organic methods the more likely you are to see a problem with feeding the world that way.
I would always rather use benificial insects, crop rotations, waste inputs if they are cheap, nematodes and GM foods to avoid using chemicals. That said, chemicals are needed on occasion.
You act as if conventional farming really was conventional, like it has been done this way for hundreds of years. In fact, if your agriculture degree included any kind of history, organic farming was the only method of farming since the dawn of agriculture about 10,000 years ago until the 1970's when the "green revolution" came about. If you degree is worth anything, you'd also realize that we've been using oil to subsidize not only our automobiles, but also our population. Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers combined with massive monocultures doubled and sometimes tripled crop output to a level that can only be sustained by the oil that creates the chemicals.
So I ask you this, why are we temporarily producing enough food to double and triple our species population, when in thirty or forty years it will no longer be economical to do so? Two generations later and food shortages will be so bad you'll have massive starvation, all thanks to the "Green Revolution". Jared Diamonds book "Collapse" depicts this situation a thousand years ago in what is now New Mexico with the native americans that were able to grow more food when it rained more often and their population increased as a result. Then, when the 50 year cycle of rain and dry turned around on them their societies collapsed.
The green revolution is just a way to temporarily increase food production and population and will only lead to massive global collapse when the oil wells run dry. I'm glad you can be so proud of taking part in it.