
Swathing is going out of fashion, as most farmers desiccate to ripen their crops - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner
======
jessaustin
At least one part of TFA plays rather fast and loose with the numbers...

 _“Farms these days are huge,” Chris Willenborg tells me. “A large farm is
30,000 acres.” Willenborg is a farmer as well as an academic, at the
University of Saskatchewan. “In my ‘farmer’ hat, desiccation makes sense
because it’s efficient,” he says. I can’t visualize the scope of a farm that
big, so he spells it out for me: “Think of a farm 60 miles wide, and 100 miles
long.” A farm that big would have different soil types, different climates
even. It would be hard, even impossible, to have good weather long enough to
harvest it all._

30,000 acres is 47 square miles, not 6,000 square miles.

~~~
notatoad
And there are definitely no 6000 square mile farms in saskatchewan.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

~~~
mikeash
According to this, there are actually a few that big:
[https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/biggest-farms-in-the-
wor...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/biggest-farms-in-the-world.html)

It’s still a bizarre statement, as harvesting is a parallelizable operation
and harvesting one big farm is no different from harvesting many small farms
covering the same area.

------
saalweachter
This comes up on HN like quarterly, so for anyone else who is always confused
when it does:

Both swathing and desiccation are primarily practices in the far north -
Canada, the UK, and the Dakotas in the US.

Neither practice is necessary or common for grain production in eg the Midwest
or Central Plains in the US: the growing season is long enough for wheat to
ripen and dry before harvest, and so it does.

So if you're in the US, there's like an 80% chance that your flour was not
produced in the way the article describes.

~~~
peterwwillis
Seems like the lede was buried... the "acceptable" levels of RoundUp in U.S.
food has been increasing from 100 percent to 2,000 percent.

 _" According to the EPA, between 1993 and 2015, glyphosate MRLs increased by
100 percent to 1,000 percent in the U.S., depending on the crop."_

 _" Current MRLs for glyphosate range from 0.2 ppm to more than 300 ppm,
depending on the crop. Between 1993 and 2015, the U.S. EPA glyphosate
tolerance levels have increased by a factor of 50 for corn, and 2,000 for
alfalfa."_

So even without desiccation, we're still "allowed" to ingest several orders of
magnitude more probably-carcinogen-related herbicides which screw with our
cells and gut microbiome.

~~~
nicky0
100 percent to 2000 percent of what?

~~~
donatzsky
The 1992 levels, presumably.

~~~
nicky0
OK so just a tortured way of saying "a twentyfold increase".

------
brd
I cannot wait for the day that the US seriously revisits the farming subsidies
and agricultural practices we've adopted. Everytime I read about modern, large
scale farming I'm a little more disturbed by the norms we're establishing.
Surely there are better, healthier ways to grow food that are still
economically viable.

I say the US specifically because unfortunately we seem to be the origin for
almost all of the modern, disturbing practices that have become ubiquitous.
We've been setting the standard and hopefully we'll make a 180 and start
raising the bar.

~~~
mitchty
> I cannot wait for the day that the US seriously revisits the farming
> subsidies and agricultural practices we've adopted.

As someone that grew up on a farm, can you explain why? And also explain why
the practices, aka fallow fields, are incorrect? A lot of the subidies and
practices we have in place today are direct results of things like the dust
bowl.

> Surely there are better, healthier ways to grow food that are still
> economically viable.

Have you validated such assumptions? I can guarantee that large scale farming
is a lot more nuanced than one can assume in an arm chair style.

Until you've seen what pests can do to a field that hasn't been treated with
fertilizer or say herbicide, its really hard to understand why they get used.
It is the difference between having a crop to sell, and going out of business
and selling off your farm.

This black and white thinking that comes from people that haven't any
experience in the chosen field is honestly more annoying. Should we improve?
Sure, no farmer would disagree, but would you be ok with increasing your food
costs by 5x? 10x? even more? These are the things you ultimately have to
consider when you knock modern practices.

There is no free lunch (pun intended) if you ban modern practices. There is a
good chance that requiring the things you want makes large scale farming
impossible, and results in more people without food at all. I'm not sure that
is an overall net positive.

~~~
brd
I've never worked in the industry but I've been casually studying about it for
the last 10 years or so. I'm well aware of the roots of our current
agriculture system stemming from the dust bowl. I've spent a good amount of
time trying to understand the history of the subsidies that shaped the Ag
industry.

The fact of the matter is that our modern farming practices are way too short
sighted. Topsoil erosion is the easiest thing to point to to identify that
something needs to change. Things like monoculture issues, herbicide issues,
pollinator health, are all things we should take more seriously but nothing is
as concrete as the argument that we need to maintain our soil better.

Small scale forest farming practices have shown that there's alternative
methods to produce high yields off the same land with better practices.
There's a multitude of simple techniques like hugelkultur that seem like
amazingly efficient ways to improve yields. Salatin's work has highlighted
some potential ways to incorporate more biodiversity on the farm to maintain a
healthier long term ecosystem. There's been meaningful traction with
hydroponic and vertical farming practices.

I'm certainly no expert in what the actual solution is but whatever we're
doing now is unsustainable. Much of it originates from the abused and
malformed subsidies that over-emphasize food security over health or
environmental issues. High Fructose corn syrup and ethanol being perfect
examples of the stupidity of our current strategy around agricultural
subsidies.

The government already pumps a tremendous amount of money into the agriculture
industry. We should just do it more deliberately and thoughtfully.

Sure, prices or taxes will likely go up. By how much is the real debate but
ultimately I'd say whatever the change is it's probably going to be worth it.
Modern farming practices is right up there with climate change as an
existential threat that we should not neglect and saddle future generations
with.

~~~
Jedd
I agree with much of what you're saying.

It feels like part of the problem is one of wording. 'Modern farming' sounds
very positive -- who doesn't like modern things? I suggest that 'industrial
farming' would be a better description, and invoke a more realistic mental
image of what it involves.

Holmgren & Mollison formulated a more recent answer to the problems of
sustainable food production than Haber & Bosch. So perhaps a system that
doesn't rapidly render the land unproductive, and does not requiring an energy
input roughly the same as the (food) energy output, could be considered more
'modern'.

------
dev_dull
I knew of this practice and it always bothered me regarding flour. With fruit,
for example, I can wash off any herbicide or pesticide applied to the plant
during its growth. However, how do I wash glyphosate or 2,4-d off a bag of
ground flour?

I wonder if this partly explains why so many people have "gluten intolerance"
(many being self-diagnosed). It may not be something inherent to gluten, but
rather the way wheat is grown and harvested.

~~~
mirimir
I have to be very careful about wheat products. If I eat the wrong stuff, I
get acid reflux, and nasty acne. Some people tell me that I'm allergic to
gluten. Others say yeast, because it's mainly crackers and noodles that I can
eat. But not all wheat crackers are OK. The only one that I'm sure of is
Stoned Wheat Thins, from Canada.

I wonder if it's glyphosate, or some other pesticide.

~~~
pyk
Anecdotal I know but same here - by trial and error I have also found certain
wheat products OK. Name brand saltine crackers, but not generics, certain
local breads, but not others. Some beers but not others too. Waiting for the
day when this is all sorted out!

~~~
mirimir
Yes, bizarrely enough, Nabisco Saltines are also ~OK for me. But not Breton.

I didn't figure it out until I started logging food and symptoms.

------
tyu1000
An interesting topic but there were some really silly speculations that ruined
a lot of the piece. Big farms can't combine in stages because they have more
diverse terrain? Multiple combines harvesting together are a picture from a
horrible dystopia?

I've lived in Saskatchewan a long time. Big farms are way better than family
farms; they take a lot less expensive government infrastructure to service and
are way more capital and operationally-efficient. Combines also always harvest
together; the crop all has to come off before the weather turns so friends and
family all come out and work monster shifts to get everything done.

If you are going to present a story as evidence-base, stick to the evidence.

~~~
Johnny555
The same is true of most businesses, for example, big retailers are more
efficient than many smaller retailers. Though I don't think I'd want to live
in a world where I can only shop at Amazon or Walmart any more than I'd want
to live in a world where only a few corporate farms produce all food.

Efficiency isn't always what's best for the market, and doesn't mean lower
prices for consumers.

------
joe_the_user
I haven't taken the need to buy organic that seriously before but this is
rather terrifying.

Moreover, it demonstrates that at any point, you might up with "conventionally
grown" food that has been grown with this year's innovative chemical addition
which uncertain implications.

~~~
woah
I wish there was a label for food that is grown without pesticides, but with
artificial fertilizers.

~~~
arnoooooo
I undersand artificial fertilizers are pretty bad for soil biology. We
desperately need healthy soil for CO2 absobtion (not to mention fertility).

~~~
bluGill
What makes you think your understanding is correct?

~~~
strainer
Organic farming enhances soil microbial abundance and activity—A meta-analysis
and meta-regression [1]

> we integrated data from 56 mainly peer-reviewed papers into our analysis,
> including 149 pairwise comparisons originating from different climatic zones
> and experimental duration ranging from 3 to more than 100 years. Overall, we
> found that organic systems had 32% to 84% greater microbial biomass carbon,
> microbial biomass nitrogen, total phospholipid fatty-acids, and
> dehydrogenase, urease and protease activities than conventional systems.
> .... In summary, this study shows that overall organic farming enhances
> total microbial abundance and activity in agricultural soils on a global
> scale.

[1]
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0180442)

------
stefs
a couple of weeks ago i heard that people who move to the us lose ~30% of
their gut bacteria diversity - here's one paper
[https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(1831382-5.pdf](https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674\(1831382-5.pdf)
. most sources claiming a monotonic diet lacking in fibre. could the influence
of glyphosat also play a role in this?

~~~
bsaul
Everything related to food in the US is just a total disaster. From meal
habits, to crop to cattle, to sugar, and obesity. This society is in self
destruction mode, and the only good side of it is that as a consequence your
pharmaceutical industry is a huge economy that’s discovering new drugs that
benefits to the rest of the world.

I wouldn’t expect this to be a sustainable model for too long though.

~~~
lurquer
>Everything related to food in the US is just a total disaster.

The US has the most plentiful and cheapest foods. It supplies its own
population with food so cheap the prices have to be supported. And, even with
that, there is enormous surplus. And, on top of that, the US is by far the
worlds largest exporter of food. As well as the world's largest supplier of
free food for relief purposes.

In light of that, your comment seems odd.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
"We have the most food so our food is the best" sums up the whole problem
pretty well, actually.

~~~
jacobush
You could shorten it to "we have the most corn originated high fructose corn
syrup so our food is the best" and it would be pretty much the same. Sorry
lurquer. :-/

------
pfarnsworth
I think I'm going crazy trying to figure out how to navigate what is actually
healthy to eat, and more importantly, what is healthy for my children to eat.

Is there a single, trustworthy authority that can tell me which brands are
safe, knowing full well designations like "USDA Organic" are being gamed by
companies?

~~~
rossdavidh
Short answer: no. Longer answer: buy from farmer's markets, preferably places
where you have seen the farm or met the farmer. You can't inspect everything
they do, but you can ask yourself, "does this seem like the kind of person who
is trying to do things right?" But, also, refer to the short answer, above.

~~~
mirimir
Thanks. Shorter, and more to the point, than my answer :)

------
upofadown
The article took a long time to get to the point. The idea is that
desiccation, if done badly can result in more glyphosate ending up in the
grain. There is an idea floating around that glyphosate can affect gut
bacteria in humans. No one has tested that so it might be a good idea to do
some research.

------
omegaworks
>Cattle are fed low dose antibiotics in feedlots—not to stave off disease, but
because it makes them gain weight more easily than an antibiotic-free cow. It
changes their gut microbes so that they grow fat on less food.

Curious if we're externalizing the costs of producing desiccant-free food into
our healthcare system. CDC says obesity will cost us $147 billion this
year[1]. Does glyphosate save the agriculture industry that much? Has the link
even been examined?

1\.
[https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/causes.html](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/causes.html)

~~~
briandear
Obesity is generally caused by eating too many calories. The real cause of
being fat is too many calories and not enough movement. The fault is at the
fork, not the farm.

~~~
omegaworks
>they grow fat on less food.

Seems to indicate that the effects of these chemicals change the way the
animal physiologically responds to an intake of a given number of calories.

When we're talking a problem that impacts us on a societal level, we need to
look at all potential influencing factors. Limiting that analysis to the
"calories-in, calories-out" hypothesis hasn't gotten us any closer to a
solution.

------
chrispeel
Swathing is definitely still used for alfalfa and grass hay. It may be called
"mowing" or just "cutting hay"; it's definitely not chemical desiccation.

------
arnoooooo
What is being done to soil biology, even in organic farming, is a disaster.

I don't know the impact this specific technique has on soil life, but I'd
wager it can't help.

If we want to keep the soil fertile, and restore CO2 absorbtion to the soil,
we need healthy soil !

------
jelliclesfarm
Farming is an incredibly inefficient way to keep people alive. The way we have
been feeding ourselves must stop. 1. Taking some Ag indoors would help 2.
Making synthetic and customized ‘food’ would also make sense. We eat too much
and not right. 3. Enormous wastage in the industry. We treat Ag like industry
and supply chain is very leaky. 4. It’s imbecility to dig up fossil fuel and
release it to create food and use it as fodder to eat more. We are just a
fart’s way to create another fart. 5. We need to think of food as fuel and
food as pleasure. Let’s farm to create food for pleasure. In a sci-fi world,
we should be able to synthesize our own nutritional requirements...but
realistically it’s possible to customise individual food needs at diff life
stages and consume synthetic food. 6. If I were to imagine a world where this
is possible..one could go to a health center once a month and assess
nutritional/calorific needs based on health requirements. A monthly supply of
food-meds should sustain us. ‘Food’ as we know it now would be for hedonistic
purposes. Why shouldn’t this be possible in our lifetimes? I am appalled and
horrified and disgusted by what we are doing to this planet in the name of
farming. One can’t say one word against large scale farming without being
shamed and called anti-science...and then being accused of not knowing the
reality of ‘feeding the billions’. Farming has NOT made our lives and our
planet better. I am hoping robotics and AI and automation would perhaps make
things better by nudging us towards a diff way to farm. Not sure if it will
happen in my lifetime. I just think of sci fi story plots instead.

~~~
jacobush
I don't like that future of yours.

Robotic farming where traverse the fields and selectively nips the weed and
kills the unwanted bugs, could probably be done with no chemicals at all.
Fertilized could probably also be added very selectively this way.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
What about land availability and water? And labour? Farms are just open air
food factories. They are not ‘natural’..they have to be erased of habitat and
soil structure to start anew every year. It’s actually horrifying and
appalling. I am not a generational farmer and I don’t harbor any romantic
notions about farming anymore after 6+ years. We have to change farming. It’s
brutal treatment of nature.

