Hawaii and Related Agriculture Daily Charts for the week ending 05-14-2010
The annual charts have bee updated. CLICK HERE to view.
The 360 day comparative price, line and histogram charts, page has been updated also. CLICK HERE to view.
Maui Land and Pineapple (MLP) 05-14-2010
Whole Food Markets (WFMI) 05-14-2010
Calavo Growers (CVGW) 05-14-2010
Alexander and Baldwin (ALEX) 05-14-2010
Monsanto (MON) 05-14-2010
Syngenta (SYT) 05-14-2010
DUPONT E I DE NEM (DD) 05-14-2010
The annual charts have bee updated. CLICK HERE to view.
The 360 day comparative price, line and histogram charts, page has been updated also. CLICK HERE to view.
Maui Land and Pineapple (MLP) 05-07-2010
Whole Food Markets (WFMI) 05-07-2010
Calavo Growers (CVGW) 05-07-2010
Alexander and Baldwin (ALEX) 05-07-2010
Monsanto (MON) 05-07-2010
Syngenta (SYT) 05-07-2010
DUPONT E I DE NEM (DD) 05-07-2010
Anna Lappé is the author, most recently, of “Diet for a Hot Planet” and co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund.
Times reporters William Neuman and Andrew Pollack investigate a dangerous and underreported consequence of genetically engineered crops: “tenacious new superweeds.” But the spread of superweeds should surprise no one.
We need to manage weeds and pests through natural processes, not toxic chemicals.
In 1999, my late father, scientist Marc Lappé and colleague Britt Bailey explained the threat of these superweeds, which “could require greater amounts of more toxic pesticides to manage, and threaten extinction for rare plants and their weedy relatives relied upon for crop and plant biodiversity.” Many others raised this red flag. Their concerns were largely dismissed as the rantings of Luddites or the hand wringing of elites.
Now we have evidence that, unfortunately, these predictions were prescient, especially here. The United States is ground zero in the global experiment with genetically engineered crops, with more than half of them planted in this country.
Who will pay the price of agribusiness’ power to silence those pointing out the most basic fact of evolutionary genetics, that plants evolve resistance? Farmers pay the price in lower yields; consumers pay the price in the checkout line; all of us pay the price as genetically engineered monocrops replace biodiversity As climate instability worsens, biodiversity is exactly what our farms will need to respond to changing conditions.
Mr. Neuman and Mr. Pollack note the industry’s response is to switch the chemical. No, we’ve got to switch the system.
We should listen to farmers, scientists and development experts who are urging agroecological farming practices, now proven to effectively manage weeds and pests through natural processes not toxic chemicals. And we should urge government support for those many farmers who want to transition away from this dangerous agricultural experiment, but who can’t afford to get off the chemical and biotech treadmill. Finally, in a farm economy where one company, Monsanto, controls more than 90 percent of all genetically modified germplasm, we should encourage competition in the agricultural markets.
Invasion of the Superweeds – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com
We Knew It Was Coming
Michael Pollan, a contributing writer for The Times Magazine and the Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author, most recently, of ”Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.”
What a surprise! Roundup-resistant weeds have shown up in fields that have been doused with Roundup! Shocking!
Genetically modified crops are not, as Monsanto suggests, a shiny new paradigm.
Actually, the surprise would have been if these weeds didn’t show up — the only thing in doubt was the timing. The theory of natural selection predicts that resistance will appear whenever you attempt to eradicate a pest or a bacteria using such a heavy-handed approach. And in fact the rise of Roundup resistant weeds was predicted by Marion Nestle in her 2003 book “Safe Food” and by the Union of Concerned Scientists. At the time, Monsanto rejected such predictions as “hypothetical.”
A few lessons may be drawn from this story:
1. A product like Roundup Ready soy is not, as Monsanto likes to claim, “sustainable.” Like any such industrial approach to an agronomic problem — like any pesticide or herbicide — this one is only temporary, and destroys the conditions on which it depends. Lucky for Monsanto, the effectiveness of Roundup lasted almost exactly as long as its patent protection.
2. Genetically modified crops are not, as Monsanto suggests, a shiny new paradigm. This is the same-old pesticide treadmill, in which the farmer gets hooked on a chemical fix that needs to be upgraded every few years as it loses its effectiveness.
3. Monocultures are inherently precarious. The very success of Roundup Ready crops have been their undoing, since so many acres were planted with the same seed, and doused with the same chemical, resistance came quickly. Resilience, and long-term sustainability, comes from diversifying fields, not planting them all to the same kind of seed.
Invasion of the Superweeds – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com
By THE EDITORS
American farmers’ broad use of the weedkiller glyphosphate — particularly Roundup, which was originally made by Monsanto — has led to the rapid growth in recent years of herbicide-resistant weeds. To fight them, farmers are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.
What should farmers do about these superweeds? What does the problem mean for agriculture in the U.S.? Will it temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for genetically modified crops that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup?
- Michael Pollan, author, “Food Rules”
- Stephen Powles, plant biologist and grain farmer
- Blake Hurst, farmer
- Anna Lappé, Small Planet Institute
- Scott M. Swinton, agriculture economist
- Micheal D.K. Owen, professor of agronomy
Invasion of the Superweeds – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com
By WILLIAM NEUMAN and ANDREW POLLACK
DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.
But not this year.
On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.