Four weeks ago this field of corn was on track to go 180 bushel plus per acre. Then the farmer had a crop service company spray it with Roundup for weed control. 500 acres total I was told. I hope the crop service company has good insurance !
Looks like there's still some weeds standing....
Hailed out.
are they sure it was round up sprayed..time for a soil sample..
Our agronomist did that to us twice in two different years. Not corn, but alfalfa. We only plant round up ready corn, but we used to plant non round up ready alfalfa. Used to. They paid for the seed to replant and that was it. Nothing for lost fertilizer, nothing for labor or fuel to till and seed. Just new seed at whatever seeding rate you planted before. Since they want to be extra generous with the round up, we decided it was in our best interest to only plant round up ready seed from then on.
Ya Colson, I bet the the guy that planted that corn will be planting everything Roundup ready after this. He will most likely be on the losing and of the settlement he gets. I was told that the the company that did the spraying had screwed up in their office communications in regards to what kind of chemicals to use.
He will be. Been through those issues with the ag companies and the farmer always pays for someone else's screw up. The same company failed to correctly setup their fertilizer spreader when they spread urea on an 80 that we rent. They ended up leaving narrow bands instead of evenly broadcasting the field. Long story short, we get half a yield on some of our best ground and they would only discount the costs of application.
Poison... *sigh* flame on.
I don't know--- seems like I pay for all my own screw ups, but farmers can get paid quite a bit for not doing their job. If we've got too many cranes around- think I could get uncle sam to send me a check for cranes that I park this year and don't use? (CRP- LDP payments anyone?) Maybe instead of mandating we put corn alcohol in all our fuel, we should mandate that all construction jobsites have a crane on them, whether its cost effective or not, or what it does to crane rental prices..., heck lets put 3 cranes on every site, and a excavator, a backhoe, dozer, and a forklift, with a man to run each one. Four or five supervisors too. Safety first. It will be good for the planet. Then again, if I had to put up with all the gov't paperwork for the hand outs, I'd probably do nothing but whine and complain about how bad I have it with low prices, no rain, and high input costs..... All in good fun to you farmers, honestly, I don't think I'd trade places with any of you. I've actually got it pretty good myself. I don't have to worry about whether the govt is going to bail me out, because I know they're not going to, so I don't loose sleep worrying about it...
Roundup ready is gone on our property, Tom changed over to Liberty, Mares tail is running rampant, it's roundup resistant, thinks it's fertilizer. Bad part, Liberty is 3x the cost of glyophosphate, no generic available, bend over and smile. Ed
So. The farmer gets the crop service company to spray a crop with Roundup, that's not a Roundup ready crop. Why is it the fault of the crop service company?
The crop service company is a fairly large company. I was told it was an internal miscommunication in their office. Not the fault of the delivery truck operator or the applicator operator.
Okay I mis-interpreted the wording.
Almost sounds like they have a method to coerce people to buy roundup ready seed. This might be one of those cases where "the end result reveals the original intention".
you are correct...funny its the same company monsanto that makes both.....$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
It is really sad when Monsanto happens to learn about farmers that plant a previous years Roundup Ready crop for seed the following year. Here is what happened to farmer (Vernon Bowman) in Indiana after he went to his local elevator and bought bin run soybeans for seed. ---->The Supreme Court ruled 76-yr-old Indiana farmer must pay Monsanto $84,456 for planting second-hand seeds from a granary. Some seeds in the mix were patented by Monsanto.
Monsanto has enough influence with both political parties to get their way. Apparently they have some judges in their pockets too.
not to get heavy into anything political, monsanto has everyone in their pocket.. thats why its so hard to find heirloom seeds anymore that arent GMO or tampered with..
xxxx
Using bin run seeds is becoming a thing of the past.....Bayer has "Liberty" crops now, they don't play well with Roundup, just as Roundup ready doesn't like Liberty. Sadly Liberty doesn't have a generic equivalent (yet) and is priced 4x higher than generic roundup. Ed
I personally have never received government assistance or payments. I take it kind of personally when others accuse that we all do. When the ag service company killed off our non roundup crops or miss apply our nitrogen, it had nothing to do with our directions. They have a computer system that tracks what is planted where for each client. They knew what we had, and where we had it planted because it was their recommendation. We hire them specifically to watch over the crops for pests, plan our fertilizer program, help select crop varieties to be planted, perform soil analysis on a regular basis and to apply various sprays as necessary to maximize production. It's not much different than hiring a shop to perform Preventative Maintenance and service on someone's fleet of trucks (or cranes). If the shop used the wrong lubricant to the detriment of an engine or failed to perform a proper allignment and prematurely wore out tires or some such thing, the owner of the equipment that is paying for the service would demand some sort of recompense for the shops inability to do what they were paid for. There's a lot of money on the line no matter who's business it is or what the business is. When a service provider makes an internal communication error or fails to properly perform it can quickly take you from mild profit to sharp loss. We never went bankrupt because of it, but it was certainly an unexpected blow that limited our bottom line. Any company, no matter the industry, can relate and feel that pain. And no, crop insurance does not help in those situations. It basically only protects the farmer in event of catastrophic loss like hail. As for CRP, I don't know of any farmer that owns land that participates. I know several non-farming land owners that do, and it's the land owner that gets that check. It equates to the cost of land rent, which is about $100/acre in our area. With all the dairy in my area competing for acreage, there aren't any local farmers giving up something they can put manure on. Same goes with the set aside program. It's just not happening here.
Sounds like the local iuoe around here.
There is a 20 acre field down the road from me that looks just like that! ISZ
Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but the agriculture in this country is subsidized, heavily, whether you want to admit it or not. If you borrow money at the start of the year for input costs, the banker makes you have crop insurance. No insurance company will back the kind of losses we have yearly in the US somewhere due to flood/ drought, hail, or whatever- so uncle sam takes the hit. I just spent a couple days in Illinois, they were terrible wet this spring, everything got planted twice, corn is barely tasseling out, will have poor yields this fall. They all replant, because the crop insurance payments are structured that they do. In my case, crane insurance is pretty expensive, but uncle sam won't back that directly (they are in a roundabout way, through federal backed investments of the insurance industry in general). So you're not buying crop insurance? If you're not, whoever grows the feed for your livestock is. If I'm sitting at a stop light with a 10' wide crane on my lowboy, I've just bought $160 worth of permits, for one round trip. If I'm sitting beside a farmer at that light, with a identical lowboy with a 10' wide combine, he hasn't bought a dime worth of permits, because he's "farming". So you've never traveled down a road with anything over 8' wide and you bought permits? Dual's, hay mower, nothing? So it isn't a advantage to a farmer/ or the landowner, when ag ground with a value of $8,000 per acre isn't taxed at the same rate as house lots with a value of $8,000 / acre? Or my commercial/ industrial tax rate for my yard and building where I park my cranes? That is basically a machine shed that I park equipment in, but I'm not ag, I'm "commercial". That benefits all farming, whether they write you the check directly, or not. I just spent $5,000 for plates/ tags etc, on my trucks, farm tags would be way cheaper. Don't get me wrong, the gov't has a vested interest in cheap food in this country, and I could chose to farm, but I don't. That's my choice- America is a great place. Farmers struggle too, to take the chance to plant each spring, pray it grows, that it rains, and take the same chance again next year. That's not everyone's cup of tea, and has risks all its own. Government drives the construction industry too, we build apartments for subsidized housing all the time. All the road, water, sewer work, has usually got a grant involved. After the Joplin tornado, all the schools around here got new gyms, thanks to fema, built as storm shelters. USDA just loaned out $7million here in town, to build ballfields for little kids- to help health in this country. I benefit from all of that. It's a messed up world, and I don't want to get into the politics of it, that's not what this site is about. I try not to let it pass when someone thinks that they are a "independent" farmer, and cry about all the other "welfare" programs. I grew up in the middle of Iowa, grandpa and uncle were both farmers (late 80's ended my uncle), I spent till I was in my late 20's building grain structures on farms. Which we wouldn't have had any business at the time, without the government helping the crop farmers with ldp payments because prices were so low, for some of that time. So indirectly, I spent a good portion of my life, feeding at that trough too.....
crane, I think part of your frustration is between the mom and pop farm that takes a beating on losses and what not compared to the big corporate farms that do get all kinds of government assistance..in my state N.Y. the dairy farmers get hosed on a regular basis by the BIG dairies that milk thousands of head and rep the benefit of all kinds of grant money and assistance that the little guy doesnt get...but if you look at all industry,,the BIG corporations find all the loopholes and money coming back to them, where the little guy may get a few crumbs, but not usually...this year I know a few friends that had to replant sweet corn all at their own expense..no crop insurance no government assistance...why we ask..well it all comes down to who sends the politicians a big campaign check...unfortunately everything revolves around politics and $$$$..
I have no interest in fueling a battle here but...... Many of the posts in this thread are riddled with misinformation and half truths. The one common flavor that I agree with is the fact there is too much government manipulation in agriculture. Politicians have known for a long time that if they control food they control the population.
Monsanto and government are inextricably intertwined. They're both control freaks and the government regulators are Monsanto people.
Most government agencies that regulate business have revolving doors for industry management... you work your way up the corporate ladder, get shoved in the FDA, etc., and after a few years of rigging the game in your corporation's favor you move back into a junior VP spot until retirement.
Yes, regulations that appear to harm businesses are written by the large corporations for the purpose of putting the small ones out of business. In the case of Monsanto, it's much worse.
I'm not sure about other counties, but where I am, I can find the list of the top outfits and what they received in farm subsidies. Top one was getting well into the 6 figures. Sure sucks about the corn though.
Glyphosate is the least toxic herbicide used in agriculture. The stuff we spray on non gmo corn is closer to poison. *sigh*
Yes, compared to stuff like 2-4D, the glyphosate is less sickening to the person applying it. It's my favorite weed killer. But none of these chemicals are good to ingest and now that herbicides are mainstream, it all comes down to dollars and cents. We're using so much glyphosate now that it can't be any good for our health. Cancer is about thirty times more prevalent today than it was 50 years ago. Another big concern is eating GMO foods, which we weren't eating 30 years ago and we can thank Monsanto for that. Remember that GMO is NOT the same thing as hybrid. GMO means genes spliced in a laboratory.
Respectfully disagree, it's just a different kind of poison. The hybrid grains are bad enough, only the 'verse knows what the GMO crops are doing to the food chain. Thalidomide was a wonder drug until it wasn't. Asbestos was a lifesaver until it wasn't. The list goes on.
the way things are going..the human race is going to be till it isnt....and thats looking closer each day...
There are elements in your blood right now that are both considered poisons and nessesary for life... If we want to list all the things "unnatural" in the world we need to avoid let's start with living in houses and crapping in toilets. Let's add automobiles, electricity, the Internet and medicine to that. It's a free world and anyone who chooses to find there food in the woods and sleep in a tree is ok in my book, I'll take civilization.
Im aware of what a hybrid is, We farm 3,000 acres and distribute corn seed. And before you ask, no I don't work for Monsanto.
Plenty of "natural" and "organic" things will kill you just fine, so that argument is irrelevant. It's what we don't know that worries me, even though it's all supposedly been tested and approved. There's mounting evidence that glyphosate *MAY* be linked to autism, parkinsons, celiac, cancer, disruption of brain function, genetic alterations. It's all well and good to say "We have no evidence that it harms anybody." but we don't know and can't prove that exposure doesn't cause some of these long term illnesses or that it won't make your grandchildren something, well, different than they should be. The autism rate of growth is astronomical and correlates roughly with the introduction of GMO grains and the explosion of glyphosate use for GMO and non-GMO crops. Proof? No, or at least not yet, but if I find a strange pair of boots under my bed I'm gonna be pretty damn suspicious even though our single neighbor sez he ain't seen anybody coming or going from my house. Hmmm?
Coralation is not causation. Also the definition of Autism has been expanded greatly in the last just couple of years. Just like more people die from cancer at 78 now instead of starving to death at 12 or dying from disease at 30. For what it's worth, there are quite a few substances in synthetic rubber and its manufacturing process that are proven poisons and carcinogens...
Yup, and girls are maturing faster due to chemicals released from plastic that mimic Estrogen and other hormones in the body, boys are growing boobs, fish are full of hormones that end up in the water from birth control pills... we can go on all day, but in the end it comes down to faith in something, and I have no faith in Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, the government, the medical community, and agribusiness. I don't wear tin foil hats or live in a shack in the woods, but something(s) are making people sicker, what are they? We now know for a fact that the sugar industry paid to suppress the effect of sugar on health and blame it on fat and red meat. Wrong. Corn sugar (formerly high fructose corn syrup) is just sugar, it doesn't have any ill effects on humans, you can believe it, we've paid tons of scientists and doctors to say so! Wrong. Yeah, there are toxins in just about everything today, but we gotta start somewhere. Oh, and 90% of all frozen hamburger products have been treated with liquid and gaseous ammonia to reduce E-coli in the product. Is that safe? They say so, but it sounds icky to me.
It's what only Monsanto knows that worries me.
when it comes to the bottom line..$$$$$$$$$$$$ they as you mentioned will lie through their teeth for profit.....no matter the consequences to people, animals or the environment...
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair
That last sentence said it all to me. Your coming at a grown up debate with the mind set of an 11 year old girl.
If you don't believe the argument you're free to refute it without taking cheap shots. Lantraxco, you can worry all you want about what we don't know. From what I gather, we DO know that mycotoxins (mold) is probably more detrimental to human health than pesticides. You know how they (at least used to) test grain for excessive mycotoxin? feed it to female feeder pigs, if they come into heat early there's too much mycotoxin, and the grain has to be blended with clean grain and fed to beef cattle, it will make hogs and chickens sick. What do you think that does to the humans who eat those... kinda makes you want to go vegan except... or only eat wild game, except... No aluminum foil hats here, that's the way it works, don't believe me, I'll find the sources if you want. Universities, not wackos.
Amen.
And you're a rude pompous ass that's defending things because they're profitable for you, if you don't get the joke buy a sense of humor.
"Icky?"
They test for mycotoxins in grain at every point of delivery before unloading the truck / wagon / barge. Loads exceeding acceptable limits are rejected. There isn't anything a farmer can do to prevent mycotoxins, it's a weather thing. And I was unaware the mold chooses not to grow on 'vegan' food. That's neet-0.
I have an update to the original subject of my thread. The crop service company made an offer to to pay for his lost crop. Not only that, they also offered to give him seed beans to replant the entire acreage. But to no avail. Apparently they are dealing with an idiot. Before this happened he was already in financial problems big time. I was told he thinks he can do better in a lawsuit ! In regards to mycotoxins in grain I know what they are. I grew up on a small farm and still own part of the original. I live next to an elevator / barge loading facility. You can say what you want about testing for mycotoxins. There are several. It most likely varies from elevator to elevator but, I can watch trucks all day long come in, get there load probed with a vacuum on a boom and the truck will be unloaded and gone in less that 10 minutes.
That's where the "except..." after the vegan came in. I'm more familiar with the organic side of things. There DEFINITELY ARE things farmers can do to prevent mold, not economically at $3 corn, that's another story. The organic dogmas are NOT designed to reduce mycotoxins, IMHO they are worse in many situations/crops. "Organic" is designed to produce more nutrient rich food, and I think they do that in general. There are hundreds of KNOWN mycotoxins, you think they test each load for each one??? Plus where do you think that rejected grain goes? Hopefully ethanol, but I'm not sure of that. I know before ethanol most of it was blended and fed to beef cattle or finishing hogs. I agree with you Dan, I'd much rather be forced to drink a cup of roundup than many other common chemicals (the poison comes from it's salt content). But if I wanted to believe everything you say, I might as well read it in a glossy brochure. There's plenty of info from good midwest universities, I'm not talking UC Berkley here.
The truck unload test takes 5 minutes. It's a litmus test. Federal Grain inspectors are present while rail cars are loaded. They check every single car, 3 probes per car. If the car is over specifications it is dumped.
They test for toxins that are present in that geographical area, that year. 99.9% of the time in corn and cereal grains we're talking vomitixin and aflatoxin. Yes you can try to prevent mold in corn. Using plenty of nitrogen fertilizer, and spraying "poison" out of an airplane are your best bets. Not politically popular however. Ethanol plants still test for mycotoxins because they sell dried distillers grains (by product) as animal feed. Yes grain is blended, to get under a threshold determined safe for animal feed by the USDA. Under threshold is key here. Your drinking water will likely contain 10's of chemicals and metals, just in small amounts that won't hurt you. Heck, I'd bet you have lead and arsenic in your blood as you read this. As a frame of reference here, I worked a couple years at a commercial rail loading facility (comes in on farmers trucks, goes south on rail). I farm full time, and I just dumped a load of #2 US yellow dent corn at the ethanol plant. I also sell corn seed. About half of my farm is planted to non gmo corn. Organic farming is a farce.
that sounds like a good deal,,but given bean seed....will monsanto go after the farmer for planting bin seed that the monsanto patent wasnt paid on?..that would be the ultimate kick in the balls...or the crop service company knows this and will call mansanto as soon as them beans sprout... some of the dairy farmers favorite saying" dilution is the solution"....I would guess that applies to any crop or product in reducing % of contaminates....
No they won't can't "go after" anyone that plants heirloom seeds. Someone surely must have squealed on Vernon Powell and the others. The story said he purchased those beans he used at his local elevator.
The phrase "bean seed" refers to actual seed product. Not bin run seed. The Ag Service wouldn't give anyone bin run grain to plant.
ok, thanxs for explaining, some of the articles dealing with the lawsuits did not clearly state the difference.. even though we blame big companies for damaging our food supply we have some of blame in other areas.. like here.. https://www.aol.com/article/news/20...b-many-medications-meant-for-people/23062294/ granted the medications we take then use the bathroom we cant control that part ending up in the water, but any unused meds we keep flushing down the hatch also end up in the water supply and cannot be filtered out ( well they can but it cost way too much for that filtration system.) and we all end up getting low dosses of pharmaceuticals back into our bodies..that cant be good over the long term..
This is corn that failed grade for blue mold. It is being unloaded from train cars because it failed inspection. This elevator is owned by a multinational corporation. They called me to help unload. Beer money on Sunday night, good with me.
So I clicked on this thread expecting to read about a sprayer operator being fired and instead learned some people spend wayyyy too much time reading on the internet.
Which elevator is that on Dan? and where are they shipping it off to?
You don't have to drink my kool aid, but you're drinking some kool aid whether you believe it or not. Same with organic farming, that's fine if it's not your thing, what makes you say it's a farce? Cult maybe, but it's certainly as real as any other business scheme or farming practice out there. Haven't you ever heard of biodynamic farming Of course I have lead and arsenic in my blood, everybody does, and most who lived through the 70's or earlier had higher blood lead levels than what they're whining about today. That doesn't mean I want MY food to be at/near the maximum allowable level of any contaminant (or at the minimum allowable nutrition level, if there WERE such a thing) Speaking of arsenic, reminds me of a relevant story of the good old days, when arsenic was added to pig feed as a growth accelerator. Somebody messed up one batch and half the pigs died, half of the survivors were blind, and they all took much longer to make it to market weight. I'm sure they were blended so as not to exceed the allowable arsenic limit Arsenic feed ingredients were pulled off the market about FIVE years ago...
A few years ago some wine company filed a lawsuit against I believe a california wine maker as they had arsenic in the wine,from what I remember of the article,( ill try and google it) was the complainant was another wine maker and he used epa standards for water not food( guess wine is a food, at least for consumption amounts) Lawsuit Claims California Wines Contain Dangerous Arsenic Levels Wineries deny allegations, insist their products are safe and plaintiffs' research is flawed Photo by: iStock Suspects? A lawsuit alleges several California wineries are allowing unsafe arsenic levels in wine. Ben O'Donnell Posted: March 19, 2015 AddThis Sharing Buttons Share to Facebook2.4KShare to TwitterShare to Pinterest3Share to More Are some California wineries "secretly poisoning wine consumers"? That's one of the incendiary charges being leveled in a class-action lawsuit against several of the biggest companies in American wine, filed March 19 in a California state court. At the heart of the suit is that the "defendants produce, manufacture and/or distribute wine in California that contains inorganic arsenic in amounts far in excess of what is allowed in drinking water." The spokesman for one company named in the suit and others in the industry argue that the lawsuit is spurious and based on misinformation. The plaintiffs "decided to file a complaint based on misleading and selective information in order to defame responsible California winemakers, create unnecessary fear, and distort and deceive the public for their own financial gain," said a spokesman for The Wine Group (TWG), one of the defendants. The lawsuit names several large companies, including TWG, Treasury Wine Estates, Trinchero, Fetzer Vineyards and Bronco, following claims that a Denver laboratory found inorganic arsenic in 83 brands, including Franzia, Sutter Home, Concannon, Wine Cube, Beringer, Flipflop, Fetzer, Korbel, Almaden, Trapiche, Cupcake, Smoking Loon and Charles Shaw. "Almost all of them are $10 or less, and the vast majority of those are under $5," said lawyer Brian Kabateck, whose firm is one of three bringing the suit, at a press conference today after the complaint was filed in the Superior Court of California's Los Angeles branch. "The consumer may be spending less than $5 for a bottle of wine, but they may be paying with their health in the long run. These are very serious allegations that we're raising against the wine industry." The goals of the suit, Kabateck said, are, "first and foremost to clean up the wine industry, which is largely unregulated in the state of California. We're asking these winemakers to take these wines off the shelves today, to recall the products. We're also asking that the wine industry come into the sunlight, become more open about what's in their product. And finally we want to refund the consumers who bought these products that we allege are dangerous." The lawyers declined to estimate a dollar amount, but any Californian who purchased a wine named in the suit between Jan. 1, 2011, and today would be eligible for inclusion in the class. "The quality of our products and the health and safety of our consumers is our first priority. The Trinchero family, as well as the California Wine Institute, dispute these unfounded claims and are actively pursuing all remedies to defend against these defamatory statements about our company and our products,” said Nora Feeley, public relations director for Trinchero Family Estates. "Trinchero has always employed sustainability practices and quality testing and assurance across the company in our vineyard, winemaking, and production practices." "Treasury Wine Estates is confident that its products are fully compliant with all relevant federal and state guidelines," said Nicole Carter, vice president of public relations, the Americas. "[TWE] remains confident that our wines are not only safe but enjoyable to drink." "Fetzer Vineyards does not add arsenic in the making of our wines. We produce all of our wines in a responsible manner and adhere to all state and federal regulations," said Holly Killion, compliance director for Fetzer Vineyards. "We don't think that this lawsuit has merit, and we think that the publicity campaign is very irresponsible," Wine Institute vice president Nancy Light told Wine Spectator . The plaintiffs are using the Environmental Protection Agency's safety threshold for arsenic in drinking water as their benchmark for wines they call unsafe—a level of 10 parts per billion. Light contends this is an incorrect standard. "There are no [EPA] limits for other foods and beverages—including wine—because they're not consumed at the same level as water and not deemed to be a risk. There is no research that shows that the amount of arsenic in wine poses any health risks to consumers." The spokesman for TWG, which is accused of high arsenic levels in 13 brands it sells, said the plaintiffs were "improperly comparing apples to oranges—only in this case, water to wine." The TWG wine that tested at the highest level at the lab in the suit showed arsenic levels of 50 ppb, meaning that a person could consume a few glasses and still not reach the amount of arsenic a healthy adult would drink daily in water at 10 ppb. Drinking the brands that tested at lower levels of arsenic, someone would have to empty multiple bottles of wine each day to exceed arsenic levels from water consumption. Light also pointed out that the named California wineries export wines to Canada and Europe; the former has arsenic regulations stating that wine must be below 100 ppb, and the latter's acceptable levels are even higher. The genesis of the suit is the work of a researcher named Kevin Hicks, whose BeverageGrades laboratory offers beverage testing and certification services. Hicks tested some 1,300 wines. He found that the 83 named in the suit had levels of arsenic above the 10 ppb range. "Before he came to us, he went to the wine industry," said Michael Burg, whose Denver firm was first contacted by Hicks. "He said, 'I have found these large levels of arsenic in your wines. Will you talk to me about it?' And they all said, 'No, we have no interest in talking to you.'" The TWG spokesman said he had not heard of any named winery contacted by Hicks before the lawsuit was filed. But the same day the suit was filed, BeverageGrades sent a press release to certain retailers offering its services for a “screening and certification model that allows them to assure their customers of the purity of all the alcoholic beverages they sell.” "If there's snow on the ground, you can safely conclude that it snowed, that someone has their own economic self interest involved here," said the TWG spokesman. Another issue in the suit is "organic" versus "inorganic" arsenic. The element occurs naturally in fruits and fruit juices. The plaintiffs' lawyers speculated that the heightened arsenic levels could be caused by clarifying agents, poor filtration, pesticides or adulterants. But Prof. Roger Boulton of the University of California at Davis, cautioned, "We do not have reliable data for winegrape juices, water sources or winemaking additives to understand where the higher-than-average levels are coming from." As for whether wine should be held to water standards, Boulton said, "I do not know enough to comment on the health effects but I think most people would agree that looking at intake rates based on amounts and frequency, not just concentrations, would be a rational approach." The suit sees it differently. "Defendants' California wine consumers have been made unwitting 'guinea pigs' of arsenic exposure, being involuntarily exposed to toxic levels of inorganic arsenic over and over again by the defendants." A court date has not been set.
Interesting read. For those who have bought into the GMO thing and Roundup I have one question. If you are wrong and this stuff is really as bad as some claim, are you willing to risk your life, your wife's/partners life, the lives of your children and grand children for profit? Because that is exactly what you are doing. You are taking the word of a for profit company that needs you as a customer without knowing for certain if that stuff is safe. You do not care if it adversely affects your family all for profit. Now most of us on here will jump a company that puts us at risk or has profits we think of as outrageous. Yet we will, on a much smaller scale do the exact same things for profit! Get this, the American farmer DOES NOT feed the world. The US produces less than 50% of the world food supply. That's down from 70 some % 40 years ago. American food/ethanol producers have forced things like E10 gas. Yet they have imported corn from Brazil when it's the cheapest way to go. In other words farmers are getting hosed! Rick
Back in the late 1980's The Old Man was involved in a study / experiment with cattle & corn . Hybrid Corn was planted in plots along with " Old School " seed in different plots in the same field . After the corn matured they turned on a group of cattle to see if they preferred one over the other ? Results were the four legged lawn mowers chowed down equally on both varieties , weren't a corn stalk standing after the experiment .
Sounds like our family reunions.
LOL old-iron ! Same story with us at the family get together . Rapped with the Old Man this afternoon .. He said the Hybrid corn they were testing with the cattle was the early GMO insect resistant type . He worked close with a Rep from Monsanto on the project . They also chopped corn silage of both varieties & fed it to different groups of cattle to see how they gained on it . At the end of the study he said noticed no difference as far as the cattle were concerned . They ate about the same & gained same rate on the conventional and early GMO insect resistant corn . This was mid / late 1980's . The big concern then was how did it affect the cattle ? Today .... How is it affecting us that eat beef , pork , poultry ? No idea . Time will tell but the Genie is 30 plus years out of the bottle and no stopping it .