Farmers Alliance for Integrated Resources

07/02/2021

As we head into this holiday weekend, it is important to know that advanced chemistries (like pesticides) can help protect our favorite summer foods and manage summer pests. Stay safe and enjoy the holiday weekend!

06/23/2021

Insightful read in the Greeley Tribune this morning from local family farmer Richard Seaworth:

"Thanks to these tools, like pesticides, our crop yields have increased. This means we can feed the world’s growing population, and preserve some of what we don’t use in food storage for emergencies."

As a farmer, feeding our communities is my number one priority, and the past year couldn’t have been harder for folks working to maintain our food supply chain. At the beginning of the pandemic, pe…

04/28/2021

Environmental sustainability should be about a clear-eyed evaluation of impact -- not about dogma. Evolving agriculture technologies have the capacity to make agriculture even more regenerative and sustainable. Closing our eyes to the evidence and holding fast to outdated, anti-technology ideas help no one.

Across the eastern seaboard, the majestic American Chestnut tree once dominated forests. A main source of timber for cabins, shipbuilding, and lumber, this

04/10/2021

Beware of chemophobia. Just because something can be described in a scary way doesn't mean you should be afraid of it.

03/29/2021

Food for thought.

If you were to ask a group of medical professionals to name the most significant public health achievements of the past century, antibiotics and widespread vaccination against infectious diseases would almost certainly top the list.

03/17/2021

"Untested, unlicensed and reckless pesticide application is the antithesis of what I do and nobody wants more than I do to ensure that such activities are stamped out for good." Small businesses protects the health of our food + homes in Colorado!

During the summer, thousands of small businesses in Colorado, including my own, were able to safely operate, pay their staff, and keep their lights on because we had access to the right tools and e…

03/12/2021

"The simple fact is: if you don't manage the pests, you don't have the food!"

The US EPA regulates pesticides (used in both conventional and organic farming) by a rigorous process that is designed to protect human health.

03/08/2021

"Fake news" in politics and public health has gotten a lot of attention lately, but did you know that there's also a fake news problem in agriculture?

Greenpeace was originally founded in Canada as part of the nuclear war protest movement, but moved to the Netherlands in 1998 after their

03/07/2021

This is important. So many things are simply accepted at face value (like the so-called "Dirty Dozen") when it's not and never has been about science - it's about marketing.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a major player in the environmentalist movement, focusing on issues related to regulating chemicals, promoting organic food, and opposing modern agricultural practices. EWG aggressively opposes the use of certain common plastics and farming techniques…

02/25/2021

Just because something is said over and over (and over) again doesn't mean it's true. Have you heard the one about "terminator" seeds? Yeah... that's not a thing.

"nti-GMO advocates have for years warned about the dangers of genetically modified, sterile 'terminator' seeds. But there’s a problem: these seeds never existed."

nti-GMO advocates have for years warned about the dangers of genetically modified, sterile "terminator" seeds. But there's a problem: these seeds never

02/24/2021

Thank you to Boulder County farmer Chad Musick for speaking up about the value of utilizing agriculture technologies (like safe organic and conventional pesticides) to ensure our critical reliable food supply.
---
Chad Musick: Farming: Pesticides create dependable food supply

Almost a year ago, the pandemic took hold of our country, sending Coloradans to the grocery store, the toilet paper aisle and their TV screens to stock up on goods and find out what to expect in the coming days, weeks and months ahead.

Across Colorado, we were able to stock up on food for weeks at a time to help minimize our families’ exposure to the virus. Thanks to the tireless efforts of truck drivers, food distributors and grocery workers, no shelf went unstocked for long.

But we also have to thank the agricultural community. Farmers work very hard to maintain a consistent food supply that keeps plates full throughout the year, pandemic or not. It’s what farmers do. Not even a pandemic can keep them from growing food.

Now, the state needs to keep farmers working, and ensure they have access to all the tools in their toolbox. That includes technological tools like pesticides, to ensure crops survive to
harvest.

Pesticides are a tested, safe way to protect our food supply. As a younger farmer, I take full advantage of the technological advances we’ve made over the years, helping make applications incredibly precise to keep our food, water and land healthy and safe.

There are few folks now who can remember the food insecurity during 1930s. Thankfully, that period remains in the past, and that’s largely due to new technology and tools that are safe for the environment and good for my business — not to mention they help keep the supply chain strong.

Our food supply may have bent during the early days of the pandemic, but it did not break.

This legislative session, we’re asking our policymakers to allow farmers the tools to do what they do best and keep Coloradans’ plates full.

Chad Musick
Longmont

Open Forum letters to the editor for Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021.

02/11/2021

The author of this article is an associate in the Sustainability Science Dept at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. If we are serious about growing food sustainably -- and want to base our approach on science, not dogma -- then we need to be willing to confront our biases and look at the data.

"If you wanted to produce food at the lowest cost to the environment, what methods would you use? Would you select modern farming methods (large-scale, specialized, mechanized and increasingly digital), or would you opt for traditional farms that are small and low-tech?...

Modern farming is better because it uses low-impact, 'precision' techniques that require less land, less energy and fewer chemicals for every bushel produced. The secret has been to incorporate tools that use sensors, information and communications technology, big data, and even machine learning to reduce farming’s dependence on material resources."

New methods rooted in low-impact, precision techniques require less land, less energy and fewer chemicals than traditional agriculture