If Ron Prokopy could prevent occurrence of disgusting sooty blotch
and flyspeck infections on his Massachusetts-grown
apples with "a couple of well-timed fungicides", he certainly had an
unusual prescience concerning weather. But that
alone could not have made such a minimal pesticide program
effective. He must also have developed some technique
for steering ill-timed and redundant rain-clouds around his orchard.
David Kollas
Kollas Orchard
Tolland, Connecticut
On Jul 26, 2010, at 10:05 AM, Daniel Cooley wrote:
On Jul 25, 2010, at 11:13 AM, Mark Angermayer wrote:
Obviously, I'm not a behavioral scientist but I think instead of
"educated"
in your quote, a better word would be "offered". That is,
agriculture has
continued to offer more attractive looking food. It seems to me the
consumer drives it, rather than the other way around.
I'm no expert on human behavior either, but I still tell my
students that a large part of what drives pesticide applications in
fruit and vegetables is that people shop with their eyes and lower
cognitive functions. I'm convinced that at some level, humans react
to blemishes, spots and rots as potentially dangerous or at least
less tasty, and given a choice, will select food that's unblemished.
Could that be changed? Could consumers come to appreciate the tiny
clusters of black spots and dusky smudgy skin on their apples as a
positive thing, akin to getting a free truffle or portobello with
their fruit? Or at least suggest that such an appearance indicates
that fungicide use on those fruit was low, if that's what they
want. Probably not; I believe we're hardwired to select 'non-
rotten' food if available.
Sooty blotch and flyspeck is an interesting pest problem. It
appears to do very little if anything to the the tree or fruit in
terms of productivity, but is exclusively an aesthetic concern.
With some sodium hypochlorite and water, most of it can be quickly
removed. But even Ron Prokopy, who was devoted to the idea of
developing the most ecological orchard possible found the cleaning
process too arduous, and eventually opted for a couple of well-
timed fungicides to deal with the problem.
I'd add that while consumers perception of quality is certainly one
driver of increased pesticide use, the other one is, as Dave has
pointed out, yield. So pesticides developed over the last 100-odd
years increase yield and quality of many crops. In order to stay in
business, a grower had to produce increasing proportions of blemish-
free apples, and do it at larger amounts per acre.
Someone made a comment that non-chemical alternatives in
agriculture would be cheaper. This is certainly not true in the
short-term, though one might make an argument if all externalities
could be accurately measured and factored in. Unfortunately, our
technology often has a tendency to outstrip our full understanding,
and consequences that we can't directly see or that take many years
to develop often go unperceived or under appreciated. The inventor
of DDT was given a Nobel Prize because the chemical was such an
amazing new tool in the fight against disease and hunger.
It seems plausible to me that the huge introduction of new
chemicals into the environment (not just pesticides) could have
significant unintended consequences on delicate biological
processes such as fetal development. The most prudent course of
action to me would seem to be to evaluate costs and benefits of our
chemical soup ASAP, and devise new methods of agricultural
production, preserving the safe elements of today's technology and
eliminating serious problems, rather than reverting to a mystical
mixture of 1930's technology and new age religion.
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