Charlie, I can't see that you can realistically disagree with the above.
There is plenty of hard evidence in support.
No your right, I don't, disagree with your thought fully explained what I disagree with is the general stamen We use "too much pesticide" the way it comes across and is read by the 99% is the problem.
Farmers ARE doing rotations, and cover crops and no till, all sorts of things the vast majority have zero clue or knowledge of. The problem arises when our leaders very poorly continue to point fingers, without a darn good explanation or understanding.
For the record, the conversation is fantastic and enlightening, I applaud those who have the fortitude to chime in, even when it seems argumentive, without the discussion and debate, we move nowhere. We sit quietly percolating in our notions even if they are completely wrong.
While there are indeed some guys who may do a "corn after corn" situation from time to time, crop rotation is done 99% of the time. For exactly the reasons you addressed. As well as pesticide rotations, which are becoming more and more common as we learn more about the mechanisms of resistance.
I was pondering how to better word the argument as we caught queens this morning. (only tie to beekeeping?) The comment that its market driven like there in CA, and Jims concept that whole foods was changing the world is interesting. But sadly its not reality.
Lets talk corn for a moment, less than 3% of corn is food grade. Food corn is already a different hybrid, but there is actually no demand to know that its "organic" so for a super tiny percentage there is no chance of changing the demand. Sure a few hundred guys will step up to whole foods and supply some, but these were guys who couldn't get their foot in the door at Kroger, or Wal mart.
Take the EU foolish ban, did it create a secondary price pioint for "non BT corn? Nope No one in the EU saying we will give a .20 a bushel premium. When that happens you may see a shift.
All these concepts are interesting, but the truth is the HUGE majority of the cost of your food is no where near close to the farmer. Most of the cost is in markup,(store) Logistics(trucking) regulations(labels) and packageing Even a farm to door product such as milk, 2/3 the cost goes elsewhere. Meat? Insane Average price of beef is what now?4.25 a lb?? price to farmer right at 1.26 a lb.
Take the concept of "grass fed beef" as mentioned here, current rules require that to be 30 days. Generally what you get is grass fed cows for slaughter, paying premium for culls. Ina few cases good steers are moved to grass, but very rare. Marketing hype. Like 4 wheel indepent suspension...fancy way of saying 4 shocks, even though its been standard for 60 years. Or "fresh never frozen" on turkeys, which means they can't be stored below Zero. 1 degree is fine....
If you take a look closely at the profits from those fancy "organic farms" in profit per acre, you will see the numbers don't change much from standard farms. No real incentive to change. I look at it like the current honey market, all these people selling 20.00 a lb honey, its sales, its had zero effect on wholesale honey prices, but the more they talk and sell the better the individual person did. Is it good? Well okay doesn't hurt anything, but its not going to change anything either.
So when we use blanket statements like "we use to much pesticide" I think we do ourselves and huge intellectual dishonesty, and an even worse one to our listeners. It shows a deep lack of understanding of the system, and IMO its no more than a feel good statement ment to shift blame to a very undeserving group. Todays farmers do more to feed us, and preserve the land they live on and take care of then most of us can even begin to comprehend.
Charles
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