Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Saturday, May 21, 2011

cabbage - dire warning

in an 'i-told-you-so' fashion, my avoid-cabbage warning has been expertly explained here by s kannaiyan.

stop eating cabbage - it is nothing but pesticide.

5 comments:

Wd said...

I had visited your blog a few years ago, and now I am back! I am glad I have decided to be a regular follower, as there is more to learn from you other than farming.

Thank you for being so inspiring.

Krupakar said...

SKD-Any idea how bad this pesticide use is, compared to other crops? Also, since we all have been consuming this pesticide cocktail from childhood, How worse off are we? Or said another way...what are the effects of consuming such chemicals? Thanks.

Musings said...

@Krupakar, There are already signs of things to come like minors attaining puberty very early, diseases like Diabetes, BP coming at the age of 25 now....

Some of them are may not be due to the pesticides we consume, definitely they are the main culprit though... my 2 cents

csm said...

wd - welcome.

krups - in terms of pesticide use, cabbage and cauliflower top the charts. so they are in effect the worst of the available veggies.
certainly we will be worse off if we continue this blind consumption. how much and related questions are beyond my scientific scope, but am just using simple common sense. there is a long term risk associated with such consumption which is neither obvious nor is well known.

Surio said...

@csm,
Thank you for scaring me legless. Like cipher in Matrix I preferred "Ignorance is bliss" in these matters! :-P!
But there are no valid pest control alternatives, or are there? I know PC based research and dissemination is not really possible under present circumstances, but just some more details of alternatives, side effects, etc... than leaving a hanging "I told you so" would have completed it. But fear not, brother. Armchair professor Surio to the rescue ;-) HeHe..

P.S: At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I recommend that you append the info presented below as an addendum into your post itself directly, for access by everyone falling on the post.

@all,
The Internet is our friend. Usually Bioingestion and Bioaccumulation damage is a build up that takes years but manifests quite suddently. Do you remember growing up in 80s India, and reading about mercury / poisoning / through fish consumption in Japan?

This will be somewhat similar. The brave should click here and here to get educated (or more scared, whatever the case may be).

My own personal take is that pesticide poisoning disaster is already manifesting itself in the other species and it is a matter of time before we are stuffed and cooked! Take a look at here and also at something called Colony collapse disorder among bees. Of course, there are highly evolved bird species such as Bee-Eater (Duh!) that feed on these bees and die-off en masse. It's OK, seems to be the stupid refrain, so long as it is not us, but the birds and the bees, it's OK. Even bats are being affected, but no one knows why it is happening yet.

Honestly, I don't know what an alternative to pesticide farming might be. This becomes even more paramount because if we stop pesticide use, there will be major crop failures for at least 3-4 seasons as crops will take time to build their resilience to pests. And while this happens, many of the 6 billion infantilised wastrels of a bipeds will surely have to die. Horrors..

I think I am depressed enough to leave it hanging at this point.