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Bees

iabwhntr said:
I also think if we did away with large scale farming and returned to the "family farm" style if producing food, quality would increase, price would decrease
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"Economy of scale" would argue otherwise.


we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil by not having to ship foods so far to be processed.
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Quaker Oats, ADM and Penford Products in Cedar Rapids. How much closer does the processing need to be?

Maybe the pheasant would come back too...
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Yes, if we stopped using herbicide and also put a fence between every 80 acre parcel.
 
JNRBRONC said:
"Economy of scale" would argue otherwise.


so would a competitive market

Quaker Oats, ADM and Penford Products in Cedar Rapids. How much closer does the processing need to be?

closer, apparently

Yes, if we stopped using herbicide and also put a fence between every 80 acre parcel.
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its the pesticide that's crushing them. The hatchlings have no insects to eat
 
iabwhntr said:
its the pesticide that's crushing them. The hatchlings have no insects to eat
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That's going way way out on a limb. What insects are we deficient in that hatchlings do not have? Habitat destruction and predators do not play a substantial role in pheasant populations?

Also, what insecticide is responsible for it? Where pheasant habitat is optimal, crp for example, who is putting insecticides there?

I'm afraid insecticides are not as widely used as you perceive the to be.
 
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We're getting a little off topic regarding bees, but we can go with it. I'm sure we've all done research on different topics regarding food...lots of research in different places. Make sure you're doing a "meta-analysis" and it isn't tainted with lobbyist stench.

Sorry, Nanny - as much as I love you brother - I have to disagree with antibiotics and such. The hormones and antibiotics do not necessarily mess with us as men, but women. It is astounding the effects it has on their menstrual cycles and pregnancy problems we have today. As far as antibiotics - they don't just kill bad bacteria, but good bacteria as well = not good. I haven't searched but I've never heard of anyone getting sick on grass-fed beef.

And it isn't the GMO beans that get us....it is the glyphosate sprayed on the GMO beans that gets us...

Bottom line is this to me: our bodies were uniquely made/created/evolved (whichever you believe) to heal themselves and sustain themselves. If given the right foods (not additives, GMO's, chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, etc), our bodies will do a great job of taking care of ourselves... We ALL have to agree on that. Our bodies have been doing this since the beginning of time. The ONLY reason we live longer than others today is because of medicine prolonging life, nothing else. And the life expectancy is decreasing year by year. ]

We can trace type 2 diabetes back to the exact month high fructose corn syrup was introduced. Again, why are we in a health care crisis?? It's because we have "sick care" not health care... We are trying to put band-aids on a crisis that can be proven

Again, I'm not 100% whole foods....as it's not quite possible for me with my lifestyle, but I understand the risks with that.

We can't live forever - but I don't want to be chasing my sicknesses around the second half of my life contributing to the health care crisis...I want to pour into young people and hopefully help others like they've helped me...easier said than done.

Good discussion points everyone...lots of irons in the fire for sure. ;)
 
Gladiator said:
We're getting a little off topic regarding bees, but we can go with it. I'm sure we've all done research on different topics regarding food...lots of research in different places. Make sure you're doing a "meta-analysis" and it isn't tainted with lobbyist stench.

Sorry, Nanny - as much as I love you brother - I have to disagree with antibiotics and such. The hormones and antibiotics do not necessarily mess with us as men, but women. It is astounding the effects it has on their menstrual cycles and pregnancy problems we have today. As far as antibiotics - they don't just kill bad bacteria, but good bacteria as well = not good. I haven't searched but I've never heard of anyone getting sick on grass-fed beef.

Fair enough. You also have to realize that the beef industry does not use the growth hormones that they did back in the day. All of the studies done on beef production are getting information from days past. So if grass fed beef get's sick with phenomena, the grass fed beef will cure their self? (This year was a terrible year for phenomena because of fluctuating temps and cold wet weather). What about anaplasmosis, anthrax, blackleg, bloat, brucellosis, bse, bvd, cancer eye, foot and mouth, coccidios, lepto, neosporosis, vibrosis? We vaccinate yearly for all of those. No "antibiotics" in any of the vaccinations, just prevented measures to ensure a healthy cattle herd. So are you still against vaccinations or just antibiotics? One is used to prevent, other is used to cure.

And it isn't the GMO beans that get us....it is the glyphosate sprayed on the GMO beans that gets us...

Glyphosate is easily motabilized by plants. What is the answer to switching away from "GMO" or better known as round up ready beans? Conventional beans, or trade named "NON-GMO" Beans? Just for fun, look up sencor, synchrony, treflon, pennical, classic, blazer and cobra, which are the chemicals used on 1 acre of non gmo beans in conjunction with imidacloprid.

Bottom line is this to me: our bodies were uniquely made/created/evolved (whichever you believe) to heal themselves and sustain themselves. If given the right foods (not additives, GMO's, chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, etc), our bodies will do a great job of taking care of ourselves... We ALL have to agree on that. Our bodies have been doing this since the beginning of time. The ONLY reason we live longer than others today is because of medicine prolonging life, nothing else. And the life expectancy is decreasing year by year. ]

We can trace type 2 diabetes back to the exact month high fructose corn syrup was introduced. Again, why are we in a health care crisis?? It's because we have "sick care" not health care... We are trying to put band-aids on a crisis that can be proven

Again, I'm not 100% whole foods....as it's not quite possible for me with my lifestyle, but I understand the risks with that.

We can't live forever - but I don't want to be chasing my sicknesses around the second half of my life contributing to the health care crisis...I want to pour into young people and hopefully help others like they've helped me...easier said than done.

Good discussion points everyone...lots of irons in the fire for sure. ;)
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Just a few points to think about.
 
Here is my take on the whole situation. People have become extremely accustomed to cheap food, which is sugar and by products, why? Because they are cheap. But everyone wants to point at GMO's, and conventional farming practices, for everything that goes wrong. If more people would pay attention to what they are eating, eat more raw vegetables, more lean meats, drink more water, and quit hittin McDonalds everyday, you would see a large change. But, budgets are tight, sugars are cheap, and sugars taste good. Going to be hard to compete with all of that.
 
nannyslayer said:
Here is my take on the whole situation. People have become extremely accustomed to cheap food, which is sugar and by products, why? Because they are cheap. But everyone wants to point at GMO's, and conventional farming practices, for everything that goes wrong. If more people would pay attention to what they are eating, eat more raw vegetables, more lean meats, drink more water, and quit hittin McDonalds everyday, you would see a large change. But, budgets are tight, sugars are cheap, and sugars taste good. Going to be hard to compete with all of that.
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I'll find the info on insects a little later but to address the question of food quality, I still maintain that comes back to smaller farms, better practices and neighbors competing with each other to keep prices down.
 
Good points everyone. Nanny, I remember using most of those chemicals you mentioned, also some that were pulled from the market after a few years because of their toxic side-effects. Remember Bladex? Think organic is good? I have a neighbor trying that. Pull out the plows and turn it black, then cultivate 4 times and still get poor yields. The bushels he does get are worth a lot more, but what would food cost then? If everyone did that we wouldn't have any soil left in 50 years. I've gone the opposite route. No-till, and now some cover crops. I'm using half the label rate of preplant herbicides, and a lower rate of R'up and my crops are weed-free. Tillage makes weeds grow!! A regularly tilled garden is a great example. Every time you run the tiller over it, you bring more weed seeds to the top to sprout. How come weeds don't grow in a prairie?
 
Now for the rest of the story. R'up was never meant to be the ONLY herbicide used. It was for the final pass to get those last weeds. Farmers cheated by using it as their only spray and now we have those resistant weeds. Farmers also used less than the label rate because they got 99% of the weeds, but left some of the bigger weeds to live and reproduce. I can use a lower rate because I use that preplant spray like you are supposed to. The weeds I target with R-up are small, so I don't need as much. Don't till, use herbicides like you are supposed to, and you get clean fields! I also have a neighbor who is no-till and relied completely on R'up and he has problems showing up. I was at an agronomy field day last year, and the Monsanto rep was taking ?s. He finally asked how many guys had ever sprayed R'Up at less then label rates and/or used it as their only spray, everyone's hand went up.
 
iabwhntr said:
I'll find the info on insects a little later but to address the question of food quality, I still maintain that comes back to smaller farms, better practices and neighbors competing with each other to keep prices down.
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Smaller farms? Should 1 person that has the drive only be allowed a certain amount of acres to farm?

Family farms are gone. None of the kids now days want to continue on what their family's do, so what do we do now, appoint people to do the farming?

Pork price is high as heck right now, along with beef. The little farmer is making more money right now than they ever have. We are a small time cattle operation, and we are selling 500 lb calves for 1100 dollars. We could finish them out, and get them to butcher weight and have them grade choice on the rail and make less than selling a 500-600 lb calf.

Small farms are still competing with each other to this day, but when you don't have anyone who will continue the work, what do you do? We are in a record high for beef and pork, if we cut production right now, cost would go down??

You have to look at the bigger picture than just Iowa. Iowa could completely be a sustainable state, but many states can not. So Iowa pork goes all over the nation and oversea's, and rather you like it or not, most of the pork industry in America is owned by Japan now. The good ole days are over I'm afraid.
 
nannyslayer said:
If your referring this link to insect's not being around, your looking at 2 different things. She is talking about herbicide, I'm talking about insecticide, which you claim is killing all the insects that hatchlings eat.
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I posted this in response to your statement:

Glyphosate is easily motabilized by plants. What is the answer to switching away from "GMO" or better known as round up ready beans? Conventional beans, or trade named "NON-GMO" Beans? Just for fun, look up sencor, synchrony, treflon, pennical, classic, blazer and cobra, which are the chemicals used on 1 acre of non gmo beans in conjunction with imidacloprid.
Click to expand...
 
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nannyslayer said:
Smaller farms? Should 1 person that has the drive only be allowed a certain amount of acres to farm?

Family farms are gone. None of the kids now days want to continue on what their family's do, so what do we do now, appoint people to do the farming?

Pork price is high as heck right now, along with beef. The little farmer is making more money right now than they ever have. We are a small time cattle operation, and we are selling 500 lb calves for 1100 dollars. We could finish them out, and get them to butcher weight and have them grade choice on the rail and make less than selling a 500-600 lb calf.

Small farms are still competing with each other to this day, but when you don't have anyone who will continue the work, what do you do? We are in a record high for beef and pork, if we cut production right now, cost would go down??

You have to look at the bigger picture than just Iowa. Iowa could completely be a sustainable state, but many states can not. So Iowa pork goes all over the nation and oversea's, and rather you like it or not, most of the pork industry in America is owned by Japan now. The good ole days are over I'm afraid.
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Those of us that would love to be a small farmer can not afford to get into it. I have tried to pencil out and justify the cost of land and equipment, used to very used, and it does not work out. My only real hope is that when my step-father passes away my mother takes ownership of his land. Personally, I think that it is a sad deal, that I can not qualify as a new farmer because of my age and would work another job till the farm got off the ground. If I could have used my GI Bill to buy a farm, like you use to be able to, I would be farming right now.
 
If local habit conditions are substantially improved, where are the pheasants going to come from?

Because of their high productivity, "wild" pheasants in the area can quickly populate newly-created habitats. In unpopulated areas of suitable habitat, transplanting wild birds of their offspring (F1 generation) appears to be the best solution. Even releases of F1 stock, however, have yielded some success. The first step should be an investigation of factors that have limited pheasant populations in the past, i.e., lack of winter habitat or increased pesticide use.
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This is from the PF website here.
 
turkeyriver said:
Now for the rest of the story. R'up was never meant to be the ONLY herbicide used. It was for the final pass to get those last weeds. Farmers cheated by using it as their only spray and now we have those resistant weeds. Farmers also used less than the label rate because they got 99% of the weeds, but left some of the bigger weeds to live and reproduce. I can use a lower rate because I use that preplant spray like you are supposed to. The weeds I target with R-up are small, so I don't need as much. Don't till, use herbicides like you are supposed to, and you get clean fields! I also have a neighbor who is no-till and relied completely on R'up and he has problems showing up. I was at an agronomy field day last year, and the Monsanto rep was taking ?s. He finally asked how many guys had ever sprayed R'Up at less then label rates and/or used it as their only spray, everyone's hand went up.
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We are our own worst enemies. :(

You talk RR, similar thing happened with Apistan strips. They were the only approved method of controlling Varroa mites (think bee ticks) on honey bees. Somebody left them in a hive longer than label recommendations, active ingredient concentration dropped, mites grew resistant........:mad:
 
iabwhntr said:
This is from the PF website here.
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So increased pesticide use could mean:

A) Herbicide

B) Insecticide

C) Fungicide

D) Rodenticide

Which is it? I'm sure you will say all of the above.

So when I said habitat is a factor, you agree? Also the bold you have, they say where are they going to come from? You have to understand, something can not become from nothing, so if there are no pheasants due to habitat loss, you build habitat, it's not a bad idea to put some stock in there to build a population.

This is way off course of the original intent of the post.
 
Forestryguy said:
Those of us that would love to be a small farmer can not afford to get into it. I have tried to pencil out and justify the cost of land and equipment, used to very used, and it does not work out. My only real hope is that when my step-father passes away my mother takes ownership of his land. Personally, I think that it is a sad deal, that I can not qualify as a new farmer because of my age and would work another job till the farm got off the ground. If I could have used my GI Bill to buy a farm, like you use to be able to, I would be farming right now.
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So what are we to do? I would love to find the answers because I would love to be A) a full time small farmer that could compete in todays market or B) a full time hunter that could compete in todays market.
 
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