253
Sticky trick: new glue spray kills plant pests without chemicals
(www.theguardian.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
253 points (96.7% liked)
World News
38970 readers
2269 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
This is good news but I love that our current standard is at "not nearly as disastrous side-effects"
We gotta start somewhere. Remember that food security is a big part of the issue as well. We can't just stop spraying the toxic stuff without an alternative because global food systems could collapse. I don't like that we were using the toxic stuff in the first place but it has become a cornerstone of our food production.
So given #2, what is the reduction in yield that would result from not "spraying toxic stuff" and is it more or less than 40%? The answer is very like no, not even close and further, this is that a "collapse" of food systems or a collapse of corporate profits?
Having done work on the distributor side of food security, this is absolutely correct. I wish this was common knowledge.
Looking at the marketing of big ag and big food, it's not surprising. The first lie of industrialized agriculture was that it was necessary to feed the world and "free people from slavery to the land". It's absolutely true that technology has massively improved agriculture and a great deal of that technology is hugely beneficial... but it also created an industry that, in essence, produces too much. It is driven to lower costs, and thus margins for producers while increasing profits for large corporations. The longer the food chain the more hands needing profit, thus spreading out value and increasing the need to add value through processed food, clever packaging and increased consumption.
By decentralizing agriculture we can shorten the chain - reducing excess production, leaving more value for the producers, reducing the impact of monocultures by spreading them out and reducing their size and ultimately bringing better and more equitable distribution of nutrition to consumers.
I wish there were fewer hurdles to that as well. Where I live, we only recently lifted a ban on collecting rainwater, though we're still severely limited. That the water is "spoken for" by downstream desert alfalfa farms makes it even harder to swallow.
Decentralizing agriculture to local gardens is part of how we solve this mess. Actively promoting replacement of ornamental monoculture lawns with native, low-water, pollinator-friendly plants would also be a positive step. Golf courses, big ag, corporate and individual property owners... there's a long list of entities that need to reevaluate their relationship with and responsibility to the land they ostensibly maintain.
How do you stop consumers from wasting food from the production side?
I'm glad you asked. More diversified and de-centralized production that shortens the food chain. That actually solves more problems than it may appear, key among them consumer understanding of what "good" is when it comes to produce, which pulls demand. A lot of produce is wasted simply because it's not the right size or blemished in some way - sorting to meet consumer demand for perfect produce is that very first layer of waste. And because consumers don't really know what fresh is they assume that 2-4 week old corn you buy wrapped in plastic is just perfectly fine. Yet, because it's 2-4 weeks old it isn't going to last much longer. Long food chains also mean increased handling which means increased risk of contamination which means increased washing and treatment, leading to degradation and waste. Bagged salad is a great example of that. When I sold salad at the farmer's market it was picked that morning or the night before and easily lasted 2-3 weeks refrigerated.
When you shorten the food chain more "imperfect" produce gets used, it's in the hands of consumers sooner and thus lasts longer and, crucially, is more nutritious both because it doesn't need to be optimized for shelf life and because it's fresher. (if you search for something like "loss of nutrition in produce over time" you'll get lots of resources on this - tl;dr this got studied a ton during WWII and it's very much a thing.
There's a ton more detail I could add here - it's a complex subject. But the bottom line is a lot of waste happens because of decentralization and our own, as consumers, distance from production.