Week 4 on the Farm: Weeds

Weather forecast: Cloudy & windy; highs in the mid-40s to low 50s.

Well, it looks like the good-weather streak might be over! It's going to be cold this week, so bundle up. Jackets and hats and gloves will probably come in handy.

One of the biggest problems we're contending with on the farm this Spring is weeds. As we've mentioned, we got overwhelmed toward the end of last season as a consequence we let quack grass creep in and annual weeds go to seed around the perimeter of the gardens, which means that we've got lots of weeds to clear from our beds before we can plant.

If we were conventional farmers, we'd simply spray these weeds with Roundup and our problem would be solved. In conventional farming, Roundup (glyphosate) has had the reputation of being harmless. But questions about its safety have been raised over the past several years, most recently in a World Heath Organization report which classifies glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.

If you remember our conversation last week, one of the major genetic crop modifications is to make crops such as corn and soybeans resistant to Roundup so that it can be sprayed over top of these crops to kill the weeds around them but not the crop. This means that the probable carcinogen glyphosate is used heavily in GMO fields. According to the EPA, in 2007 185 million pounds of glyphosate was used by US farmers. It's probably more than that now, but I haven't found more recent numbers. That's a lot of probable carcinogen to be spreading around.

So how can we solve our weed problem without probably creating a cancer problem? Well, there are lots of things we can do. We use cover crops and mulches to suppress weed growth. We mow weeds off on some of the paths between our beds. Currently, we're experimenting with temporary plastic mulch as a means to kill back some patches of quack grass that are out of control. But also, there's simply a lot of hand-pulling and hoeing to be done, especially right now. If the weather cooperates, you can help us with this this week as we make a big push this week and next to get beds in shape for planting.

Speaking of solutions, I came across an article in the Des Moine register this week about how some farmers are going back to planting non-GMO crops because they can sell to companies who are producing non-GMO certified foods and get a higher price for their crop. Here's a link to the article: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2015/04/18/non-gmo-farming/25951693/.

This reminds me of the controversy over recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST). This is an artificial version of a naturally occurring bovine growth hormone that was created by Monsanto in the 90s using recombinant DNA technology. When injected into lactating cows, it boosted their milk production, but it also created a lot of other health problems for the cows. Some people were also concerned that the milk produced by these cows might have detrimental effects on people too and in a move similar to the GMO-labeling movement, started a campaign to label dairy products which were produced using rBST. This movement ultimately failed, however, companies saw a marketing opportunity in promoting their products as rBST free. As more and more consumers chose rBST-free dairy products, chains such as Safeway and eventually even Walmart stopped carrying dairy products produced with rBST. So, it's still legal but it isn't used as widely as it might be if consumers hadn't "voted with their dollars."

Now, I'm not saying that market-based solutions in and of themselves are going to solve all of our problems (in fact, I'm pretty firmly convinced they aren't). But consumer choices can definitely make a difference!