Weeds and Grain
Mar. 8th, 2019 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis article talks about weeds and the failure of herbicides. Well, duh. That's basic biology. For any stressor, surviving individuals will breed together and pass their resistance to offspring. Spray herbicides and you are literally breeding for superweeds.
Thing is, we didn't always have herbicides and farmers managed to raise food just fine. When I was little, the most common summer job for older kids and teens was weeding. You went out in teams of several dozen, each person armed with a hoe or a hook, and you cut the weeds out of the corn and bean fields. Those jobs are gone now. But if herbicides stop working, all we have to do revive those jobs. The farm bills might need to be adjusted, but before you assume that, compare the cost of spraying multiple herbicides over and over through the season. Food has to stay affordable or the country will come apart at the seams; if that means a bigger boost from taxes, that's doable. Don't panic over the loss of herbicides; we still have hoes.
Thing is, we didn't always have herbicides and farmers managed to raise food just fine. When I was little, the most common summer job for older kids and teens was weeding. You went out in teams of several dozen, each person armed with a hoe or a hook, and you cut the weeds out of the corn and bean fields. Those jobs are gone now. But if herbicides stop working, all we have to do revive those jobs. The farm bills might need to be adjusted, but before you assume that, compare the cost of spraying multiple herbicides over and over through the season. Food has to stay affordable or the country will come apart at the seams; if that means a bigger boost from taxes, that's doable. Don't panic over the loss of herbicides; we still have hoes.
