Something From The Organic Side

[Foreverford]

Here's a post I put on our organic site thought it would be interesting to all that don't read that forum. enjoy

Some new #'s have just come out on Chem usage in Asia. Here are the approximate numbers as I recall from an article a little while ago. Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia total together about 1000 different kinds of Chemical usage on their farms. Now for the big bad nasties of the world, China, they use over TEN times the amount of chems than those countries. Over 10,000 different kinds! Is it possible? Thank your lucky stars that we live in Thailand and don't have to eat the food produced from China (that's too often as a lot of the markets are selling Chinese produce now. Be careful but at least if you buy Thai foods you will know that they use nowhere near the amount of chems on the farms as the Chinese. they use only 23 different kinds. ooops typo there that is twenty three thousand different kinds of Chems in farming and that is not a typo. Bon appetite.

[WatersEdge]

Cite your source?

I don't get it.

Does the number of product labels have significance?

[Foreverford]

Cite your source?

I don't get it.

Does the number of product labels have significance?

good question. This was from an article in the "Bangkok Post" or the "Nation". I think you're probably spot on in regards to labelling rather than individual chemical compounds, still a staggerring figue but definitely very believeable. I would imagine medicines in livestock would obviously be thrown in there also. This was an article in response to Thai produce recently having issues in Europe in regards to contamination with chems and also the shipping of infested products.

[IsaanAussie]

What admirable sources of information! Things may get messed up sometimes in the translation I suppose. I must have sent a million letters to the editor telling them not to exaggerate

The scarey thing is the uniformed use to which many of these dangerous chemical are put. Saleman tells store owner, who relays a version on to a farmer with a problem, and he decides to add a bit more strength to the mix. Then a different concoction tomorrow. The residual effects, and the potential interaction between them is scarey, not just the chemicals themselves.

Then you have the "brave" souls that apply most of the stuff for others in the village. We have a few here that now walk in circles and have nasty twitches. The safety thongs and suntanned hands apparently are not up to scratch as safety gear.

[tim armstrong]

What admirable sources of information! Things may get messed up sometimes in the translation I suppose. I must have sent a million letters to the editor telling them not to exaggerate

The scarey thing is the uniformed use to which many of these dangerous chemical are put. Saleman tells store owner, who relays a version on to a farmer with a problem, and he decides to add a bit more strength to the mix. Then a different concoction tomorrow. The residual effects, and the potential interaction between them is scarey, not just the chemicals themselves.

Then you have the "brave" souls that apply most of the stuff for others in the village. We have a few here that now walk in circles and have nasty twitches. The safety thongs and suntanned hands apparently are not up to scratch as safety gear.

Yes, its depressing. What about the guys kitted out with the latest sprayer, headgear, longsleeves and .. shorts !! Interestingly, our local Uni community health dept. is doing a study on the effects of farm chemicals. But I guess it will only serve to get its owners a Masters degree, rather than turn into something practical.

Sometimes in this country you feel so frustrated about your inability as a farlang to stop your farmer neighbours from making all the same mistakes that we have made in our own countries. By comparison to most of Oz, the soil and conditions for growing anything in Thailand are amazing, but farmers seem to be heading down the same old chemical laden destructive routes as elsewhere. whinge! whinge!

[WatersEdge]

Hi IsaanAussie,

The safety thongs and suntanned hands apparently are not up to scratch as safety gear.

What we couldn't accomplish with a heavy tonnage crop duster aircraft,

for covering large land areas with correct applications of chemical,

and also applying fertilizer without driving or walking over the field

I asked a general aviation buff a few years ago,

what it would take to get an Ag Cat over here.

For the visual aid, run through this slideshow forward and back...this frame is somewhere midway.

http://www.agplane.nl/international/southafrica/01c2c499a90ef0609/d013.html

The idea went about as quickly as it came,

because it would not be practical even though an obvious advantage.

Terminal Problem would be finding the tiny patch that needed spray that day.

Average Field size is simply too small in Thailand for an Ag Cat to work.

But what a dream to hear one of those buzzing in low across the fields.

Hi Foreverford,

If we can just get an Ag Cat in here

back to your original point of the thread,

we would put on all 23,000 chemical labels in the same day.