This has come up a few times in the recent past for me. Myself and another
PC savy fellow got talking about agriculture and he stated that round up
ready (glyphosphate herbicide tolerant) soybeans seemed to him to be the
most sustainable method going for this crop. I have to say I agree with
him, having grown the crop organically and made 2-3 times the trips across
the fields to get the same yields. In another context I pointed out to one
of our new PC group members who had posited organic farming as the only
acceptable alternative in PC that this was too narrow. Organic fertilizer
made from ground up ocean fishes and kelp may be far less "sustainable"
than industrial by product based materials in our area (midwest
USA). Furthermore spraying to kill turf to convert it to a garden yields
less erosion, preserves soil structure better and burns far less fuel. It
is essential to get passed our biases and look as clear eyed as possible at
all system and be prepared to push past ideologies to really design
sustainable system, or at least move toward the least harmful alternatives.
Mark P. Ludwig
Poultry Research Lab
University of Wisconsin -Madison
608-262-1730 WK
608-846-7125 HM