The TV commercials are a telling sign of the ill health of our society. Often the majority of the ads are for pharmaceuticals. The drug companies only sell that which is in high demand. What is that saying about the health condition of the people in this country? You see ads for diabetes, respiratory diseases, heart diseases, cancer, infertility, sexual dysfunction, digestive disorders of all kinds, pain and arthritis, depression, mood and psychological disorders just to name a few; the drug companies represent that ill-health is a pharmaceutical deficiency. It is a very profitable approach to managing disease—that of perpetual dependency.
Diseases are escalating and medical costs are unaffordable and spiraling out of control. Despite having the best health care in the world, we in the US range near the bottom of world nations in over all health. What we are seeing today is not normal. Thirty years ago it was extremely rare to have an autistic birth—that of 1 per 100,000. Today it is 1 in almost 60 and by 2020 it is projected to be 1 in 2 in the US. Everyone knows of or has lost a close friend or family member to cancer; and 1 in 3 is expected to have cancer in their lifetime. At the rate this is going, in less than a decade 1 in 2 people will have cancer. Childhood obesity and diabetes are going through the roof, as well as adult obesity and diabetes. How can anyone say this is normal? Go back 30-50 years and these diseases affected a small part of the population not the vast majority of the population as they do now.
Why is this all happening? What have we changed that could possibly affect so many people from so many walks of life unilaterally?
Animals
Just as human health is being manipulated by various types of drugs, so is the animal health around us. Our animals are certainly not any healthier than we are. Poultry, swine, and cattle are mostly raised in CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operations)—very high densely populated facilities. The livestock industry consumes SEVEN TIMES the antibiotic volume compared to the human population. Nearly all of the antibiotic resistance is being generated from the livestock sector because of the severe over-use of antibiotics in those industries. But why are we using so many antibiotics in managing livestock? Is this normal? Ask your Father or Grandfather if what we are experiencing now was normal for them. Their answer will be 'certainly not!’
Plants
Let's now look at the plants we are eating and also feeding to our animals. Are not the vast majority of these plants also 'chemically supported?’ Modern Agriculture is inundated with pests, weeds and pathogens, and the chemical companies have gladly stepped forth with insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, nematicides, and more to offer the farmer as a 'cure' for the problems at hand. This began in earnest more than 70 years ago; how many of these problems have chemicals corrected to date? Is not every single chemical type listed before (and more) still in use today? And even at higher and higher rates! When that didn't work, the chemicals were made stronger and stronger. How is that working out these days? Where is the improvement? what have we fixed or cured? Seems to me we are paying out a lot of money based on the principle of perpetual dependency. It seems nowadays you can't get a crop from planting to harvest without a host of chemicals to stave off the insects and pathogens. Seems to me agriculture is spending billions of dollars annually to mask and cover symptoms but never fix the underlying problems.
Soils
Let's take one more step backwards and look at how our soils are being managed. Is not the practice of today—N, P, K—simplified fertility? Nearly all commercial fertilizer is processed or synthesized with salt and acid bases. We use a host of soil 'sterilizers' in an attempt to control pathogenic organisms from disease causing nematode, fungi and bacteria. We fumigate our soils with deadly chemicals so the vegetables, produce and berries have a chance of making it to harvest. Crops must be rotated because there is no way to further control the disease causing organisms in the soil if the same crop were to be planted in succession. Not only has our 'fertility' plan been reduced to a few major minerals that push volume in plant mass but no one ever talks plant quality and nutrition these last seven decades. Has anyone you know made a serious ongoing practice of replacing essential trace elements in the soil? I am not talking a few like Zn, Mn, and Cu; I am talking about 70 plus of them. Yet every time we produced a crop in the past we used some of these minerals and the vast majority were never replaced. In time, they have become depleted. Many Universities funded by chemical companies will tell you as a farmer you do not need these minerals; you just need N, P, K. The current day approach to farming is apply enough N, P, K chemical to get a crop. How much are the trace elements even considered by your current fertilizer supplier? Is this the way Nature manages soil minerals? Are there other ways to understand a soil besides piling on the N, P, K?
This brings us to the last factor in the soil to consider: biology—those little microbes that we so diligently try to kill year after year, decade after decade. The chemical companies would have you believe that all microbes are bad, therefore eliminating them without regard is appropriate. Isn't that what we do in our current agricultural practices? Our fertilizers kill them, our tillage kills them, every insecticide, fungicide, herbicide, nematicide etc., kills them. Are our fertilizer suppliers ever taking the soil biology groups into consideration? With rare exception at best. Is our current approach to soil biology anything like Nature’s system of microbes / mineral interaction for plant fertility? Overwhelming NO! Now, answer honestly, are our soil systems being 'chemically sustained' in a very real perpetual dependency? The answer is YES!
Do you suppose that the soil health might have anything to do with plant health? And would plant health have something to do with animal and human health? If every system from the soil, to the plant, to the animal, to the human is sick, unhealthy and chemically dependent are we really improving things on this pathway or just paying a lot of chemical and fertilizer companies a great deal of money to perpetuate this line of thinking that we have adapted as modern agriculture?
I am going to suggest that we have been 'duped' into doing many things wrong. 'Quick fix' agriculture is an attractive pitch, but has it worked? Is agriculture improving? Are farmers making more money with less inputs or are costs increasing and margins getting thinner? Are weed and insect pressures in decline or are we using more and more chemicals today and still experiencing high losses? Has the health of our livestock gotten better or worse over the past several decades? Has the nutrition in the plants we grow improved? Have we as mankind gotten healthier or sicker as a whole?
The solution to these many problems begins in the soil.
No comments:
Post a Comment