Ag spray...tis the season

Well, there is no way now that we will have an untouched by spray garden & berries this year. So much for harvesting our mint. It is perfect for harvesting, but is in water that reaches into the field. It won't be any good now.

The neighbor's sprayer is out spraying in spite of high booms in high winds and it is all blowing into our yard & pasture. It's bad enough this time that we are feeling it in our throats & noses indoors with all windows closed & locked. This is the worst it's ever been. 😡

I worry about the wild birds who are now feeding babies, the quail & serama downstairs & my birds and other animals outside in this as well.

If he was only reasonable. If only he listened to simple & respectful requests. If only he followed instructions & laws about not spraying in wind. If only we had the money to move...

I am far from happy this morning. Our expectant daughter is on her way for a visit. I caught them too late to say to stay home. I don't want her to breathe this.

Winter is by far my most favorite season for this very reason.

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Comments

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    I am really sorry to hear that - I wish there was some way to convince the industry to change. Maybe hyper-inflation and supply chain shortages will convince some. More likely though, they will just stop farming.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Sorry you are experiencing this @LaurieLovesLearning. Its so hard to change the small minds of people who have been doing things this way for so long. They certainly don't want to admit that they have been doing anything wrong or dangerous.

    We have a local rancher who uses large quantities of all kinds of chemicals. We drove by in early spring as the fields were being prepared and noticed large industrial size bags of chemical fertilizer that had just been dropped off. Must have been 2 semi loads. This is being done on a ranch that runs 1000 head of cattle and feeds silage in pasture all winter. Their pastures are so deep in fertilizer! Is chemical fertilizer that cheap that it is more cost effective to use that than scrape up free fertilizer and put it through a sprayer? And that's only the beginning. Herbicides and pesticides still to come. One of the owners was quoted in the newspaper about the benefits and no dangers of Roundup. But they also use Weedex and Killex (contains 2, 4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange).

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited June 2022

    You are correct. They believe it is necessary. If they don't have it, you bet they will sell instead of changing.

    One large farmer we know stockpiled his chemicals early last fall and has his whole year's worth stashed. He asked his insurance company if they could insure it after the fact. You wouldn’t believe how much the stuff cost in the first place. I knew it was expensive, but my jaw dropped.

    Other farmers whodidn’t stockpile...um...hoard...are feeling the shortage. That's one shortage that is a good thing.

    @torey That's horrible.

    Granular fertilizer is easy. Easy is fast & convenient. The farmers are disconnected from real farming knowledge and have been for a long time. They won't even consider what value might be in the manure.

    It is amazing how many fully believe these chemicals are safe in spite of their origins & safety record. Hype & marketing...and often marketing isn't fully honest, especially with these products.

    Weedex & Killex. I hate going by that aisle in any store. I remember those on the sales shelves of the nursery I worked at years ago. I was in that little shed a lot of my day as it was like my "office" of sorts. The cash register & reference books were housed there. It smelled as you can imagine.

    The thing is, any of those chemicals sold in nurseries & stores, as potent & dangerous as they still are, are nothing like the full strength ag stuff.

    I often wonder if WW2 never happened, if we would have such nasty chemicals poisoning everything. They needed to sell their stockpile somehow & figured out that it could bring "results" in fields. Voila! A use! Charge lots & say how great it is, how safe it is, and how your farm can't survive without it!

    Farmers believed the marketing hype. Now, most will never let it go, especially with zero till. Those are the highest users of these chemicals.

  • Michelle D
    Michelle D Posts: 1,465 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My mom was telling me yesterday that her grandparents were farmers. They grew corn and strawberries. It was a very successful farm for the entirety of their adult lives. Never once, not a single time, did they ever purchase fertilizers of any kind. It is really sad that so many people believe the lies that chemicals are better or even that they are not damaging. If we took care of our soil it wouldn't need all that garbage.

  • JennyT Upstate South Carolina
    JennyT Upstate South Carolina Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2022

    @LaurieLovesLearning I'm so sorry to hear that. And I'm enraged at his selfishness and inconsiderate nature along with you.😡

    Praying for you and your family's health also the health of your animals.❤️🙏

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @JennyT Upstate South Carolina Thank you. For me, that's always a worry, partly because a change of health due to it is not always something that will show immediately.

  • Cornelius
    Cornelius Posts: 872 ✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning I'm sorry that this is happening. Maybe he would stop while it is windy if he realized most of it is blowing away and is literally wasting the money. 🤔

    Is there anyone you can report him to for violating some of the laws?

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    I am seeing a lot of damage on our trees with new growth. One is very large (25-30' high) and I can see it even at the top this year. The others are smaller and have curled leaves & are beginning to look droopy where the new growth is and the new growth is only 1/2 way (the tree grows 1' of new growth on every branch & twig each year). It isn't because the heat. Heat damage & spray damage is very different, but I'm sure he would deny damage if confronted/presented with it in any way.

    Conventional farmers are often greedy. Greed doesn't have good logic nor lead to logical decisions. They certainly know it's windy. They know they shouldn't spray when windy too, but there is that "small window" when the spray will be "most effective". All the farmers here are that way. Oh, and herbicides are not dangerous because they are meant to only kill plants. Our kids have heard him say that...harmless.

    Somehow the wasting of money never computes with those types either. It is the strangest thing. We know more than one rich farmer that doesn't seem to put two & two together and so tend to waste money through their daily/seasonal practices, constant mismanagement and so on.

    I wish we could report him, but he would most likely make our lives miserable. His decades long nemesis is now no longer living in his own home (long story), and so most likely we could become new & easy targets for even whispering about what has happened. We know some of the stuff he'd likely do based on past actions toward his nemesis, and it's certainly not good.

  • JennyT Upstate South Carolina
    JennyT Upstate South Carolina Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning I hope you are all doing a little better now that some time has passed and hopefully you've had the chance to get some of it out of your systems. 🤞

    I'm sorry to hear about the damage to your plants. And more aggrieved to hear about the farmer and his possible actions toward your family should you speak up about what has occurred.😔 Such a hard place to be.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Our breathing is better. It is something we deal with multiple times a year from the surrounding farmers. This was just a bit worse than usual.

    It is a hard place to be. If we are so fortunate to move one day, we'd choose the place very carefully to avoid the same. Clean air is very important.

    The haskaps showed damage to the berries...not sure if I'd said that. We won't be harvesting them this year.

  • jowitt.europe
    jowitt.europe Posts: 1,465 admin

    @LaurieLovesLearning sorry to read this, Laurie. It is really bad! I a, happy I live in the mountains where there is no possibility to develop huge farms. The only fertiliser is cow manure and it is spread dry. We already complain when it is mixed with water and sprayed like slurry. The farmers fertilise in early spring and late autumn. Very little is happening in gardens at that time and bees do not fly. So I should not grumble about slurry, although we - herbalists do, as the wild herbs are disappearing from the meadows.

    there is another story in upper Austria. A real farmers land. There they do spray. Our son lives in a village. Beautiful views, but one cannot grow anything eatable in the garden. I do not pick a single herb there.

    there were many attempts to ban glyphosate in Austria, but, the parliament adopted only partial ban, so it is not allowed to be used in private gardens, only on big farms and that is until end of 2022. Hopefully, it will be then forbidden.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @jowitt.europe I hope that there will be a full ban over there, but the chemical companies have a lot of money & power.

    Liquid manure is spread in farmers fields here too. It smells so bad and it lingers.

    Thankfully we are not downwind of pig barns injecting it into fields (however we do smell the barn sometimes) and far away from any dairies that do liquid manure. I'm happy to say that most dairies we know don't do liquid. I'm not sure it's as popular in the smaller dairies as it once was.

    The smell is not the same. I love the smell of a few cattle on pasture grass or hay. The other, I can easily live without.

  • marjstratton
    marjstratton Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning that is terrible that he is such a danger to the neighborhood.

    @jowitt.europe I had heard that glyphosate was banned throughout the EU. Very sorry to hear that it is not.

  • jowitt.europe
    jowitt.europe Posts: 1,465 admin

    @LaurieLovesLearning yes, the smell of liquid manure. It is definitely not nice, but I prefer it to all other chemicals.

    @marjstratton this was a big disappointment for me, when they extended the period until when it is allowed to be used. We do not buy any grain which is not organic. Even for chicken feed.

  • marjstratton
    marjstratton Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭

    @jowitt.europe We have a bakery near us that doesn't use organic certified grain, but they buy only from farmers who don't spray the grain. For us that is almost as good as being certified, without them having to pay the price of certification.

  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,987 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Even if herbicides were not dangerous to humans, they could still damage your garden.

    It's very sad that you live in an area where you have to put up with this. I agree with you that it is not likely to change any time soon.

    For others reading this, if you are thinking about buying a place for your organic homestead or simply a small garden, take this sort of thing into consideration. You do not want to buy a place in an area with conventional farmers right on your borders. They may be friendly people, but they'll be businessmen first, and the spraying is part of that. Look for an area where the farmers are organic, or where conditions are not good for conventional farming.

    I live in an area where the soil is pretty terrible, and the land around me is either homes on average lots or thick undeveloped forest. You can solve the soil problems more easily than you can get your neighbors to change their behavior.

  • jowitt.europe
    jowitt.europe Posts: 1,465 admin

    @VermontCathy you gave a good advice for buying property. Even if one does not grow anything but flowers, one does not want to be constantly poisoned. Wind and rain brings it everywhere round.

  • jowitt.europe
    jowitt.europe Posts: 1,465 admin

    @marjstratton this is what I call a natural way or growing your crops. I do not bother about certificates as long as I see that a person uses only natural fertilisers from plants or own chicken, kept naturally. Actually, certified bio (this is how we call organic)farms spray. At least in Europe. Our herbal teacher told us that bio apples are sprayed up to 16 times. Not bio over 30. Of course, bio farmers say that they spray only natural stuff. Well…

  • Cherlynn
    Cherlynn Posts: 169 ✭✭✭

    We managed to greatly reduce chemicals that the farmers used to use. Very high cancer rate in our area and it all lead back to Round up. People were shocked to see it's in all our water sources and they screamed bloody murder and most of our farmers refuse to use chemicals now. Now they use manure to spread in their fields and they all admit their crops are doing much better.. How is the cancer rate where you live?

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @Cherlynn My husband asked what region you live in.

    The cancer rates are not talked about here, however, many years back, lots of farmers were showing cancer signs...non-hodgkins lymphoma and leukemia. I think it all gets hushed up and many farmers still believe it is safe. There is no money in admitting that its dangerous.

    My husband told a story just yesterday where he said a retired military guy he knew said that full hazmat suits were always required when dealing with any chemicals as the farmers use...and yet farmers may use gloves or a wimpy mask at best.

    I know at the nursery I worked at, a full hazmat suit was also required, and nobody was to be in the area for a set amount of time after spraying. Thankfully, I never had to spray.

  • marjstratton
    marjstratton Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭

    @jowitt.europe I learned many years ago to run away from products which proclaimed that they were all natural.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    We just got a thick, glossy huge postcard type ad in our mail today.

    Supposedly one of the spray companies is now marketing a chemical spray to mitigate the heat's hormonal effect on canola. Yet another reason to "love" anything canola, which is a totally oversprayed crop to begin with.

    Across the road this year has canola. The field surrounding us gets canola next year. He only does wheat & canola.