Dangerously organic!

An Argument for Organics

No apologies. Zoobird is all about culture, not politics. But we have to mention this.

"A French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.

In the first such case heard in court in France, grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004."

Complete News : http://agrinewspk.blogspot.com/2012/02/monsanto-guilty-of-chemical-...

(Writing by Gus Trompiz; Editing by Muriel Boselli, Sybille de La Hamaide and Jane Baird)

(graphic from http://agrinewspk.blogspot.com)

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Comment by Tim Kinney on February 17, 2012 at 6:06pm: Not to mention the farmers in India who have been driven to suicide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_suicides_in_India

From the wiki article:

"Research by various investigators like Raj Patel,^[2] Nagraj,^[18]^[19] Meeta and Rajivlochan,^[21] identified a variety of causes. India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; moreover, a downturn in the urban economy was pushing a large number of distressed non-farmers to try their hand at cultivation; the farmer was also caught in a Scissors Crisis; in the absence of any responsible counselling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became an option for them ^[22]

Research has also pointed to a certain types of technological change as having played an instrumental role in the problem. One study from the Punjab showed dramatic misuse of agricultural chemicals in farmer households in the absence of any guidance on how to correctly use these deadly chemicals and linked it to the rise in farm suicides wherever farm chemicals were in widespread use.^[23] Important research in Andhra Pradesh showed the very rapid change in seed and pesticide products to have caused "deskilling" in the cotton sector.^"