Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds

I've been wondering, off and on, if a return to more labor-intensive ag would be such a terrible thing in an economy with 17% unemployment.

Way to destroy our food source, morons. :argh:

teens and college students to "walk the beans". I don't know how the labor costs compare to the cost of herbicides--that will make the decision, for most family farms.

with walking beans or detasseling corn for summer jobs. I never walked beans but I did detassel corn. Hot, tiring job with only a lunch break. You keep moving or you get fired.

I don't--I think they'll keep looking for the next miracle chemical instead. The cost of hiring even low-wage workers, and the headaches of liability, payroll tax, etc. will discourage it.

the chemical corporations, informed me in a recent article not to worry about the super-resistant weeds. New chemicals will quickly be available, so farmers can just spray or pour one more poison onto the ground around their franken-beans and nip these things in the bud. Just keep buying more and more of their stuff, and nothing to worry about.

I have a neighbor who I knew from his childhood. A sweet kid, I watched for years as he was the one designated in his family of farmers to do all the poison mixing and spraying. I talked to him about the dangers, and he said he was aware of it, but someone had to do it. Now in his early 50s, he is very ill and disabled with some neurological disorder that struck his whole body a few years back. No one has a clue what caused it, of course.

God damn Monsanto.

I tell you this - you could not pay me to ingest domestic soybean products, or use soybean oil. I avoid EVERYTHING that lists soybeans as an ingredient, unless it is reliably organic.

Wat