Monthly Archives: July 2017

Pesticides in Potato

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There has been talks about possible presence of glyphosate and other pesticides in tubers such as potato.

I was informed by some that potato being grown some places in Canada might be desiccated by glyphosate prior to harvesting. But according to data received from CFIA, potato were not tested for glyphosate, and the word potato comes up sparingly in the items tested which were processed meals that contained potato. Potato might not have been the main ingredient in those products and the presence of glyphosate was not noted to be high or consistent. So I would say that the CFIA results were not conclusive that potato posed a serious threat to glyphosate poisoning to people.

Anyhow, I asked Anthony Samsel. This is what he said:

Tony,
Glyphosate causes DAMAGE to potato tubers…It is generally only used pre-plant and low levels do get into the tubers.. and cause reduced quality and yield.  The herbicides used pre-harvest to desiccate the vines are generally GLUFOSINATE, DIQUAT (Reglone) …..  
These are necrotic lesions caused by glyphosate in the soil…

necrotic lesions

(Above pictures, as well as the rest, are new to me. I have not seen such potato either in the store or in my backyard. I guess such items are removed before potatoes reach the store shelves. I might not have them because I do not use glyphosate or any industrial pesticide in my residence or garden.)

This is crippled shoot (at left) formation from the potato eyes called Cauliflower formation and is a telltale sign of glyphosate application to the field …

This is tuber cracking (at right) caused by glyphosate exposure from spray drift.

…. most potatoes have residues of herbicides and fungicides such as the fungicide Chlorothalonil… which never should have been allowed into the food supply.  This fungicide causes mammalian embryo fatalities and reductions in live fetuses…  Animal studies show that Chlorothalonil is a probable carcinogen…..
Anthony

The images and the text in blue are from scientist Anthony Samsel of USA. I have never seen such potato either but can understand why or how this might happen.

Meanwhile I did check the issue of Chlorthalonil in potato, among items tested by CFIA. There are more than 2,500 samples of potato tested by CFIA from 2008 till 2016 for presence of Chlorothalonil. Out of them all, only four samples had any chlorothalonil.

The above table shows some of the details available from the only samples that contained Chlorothalonil. For some reason, just one sample, the one on top, representing fresh potato from from the US contained over 3,700 ppb of Chlorothalonil and was in violation. The others contained less than 3 ppb, the last one was declared as organic.

The table is also the link to the full downloadable file of over 2,500 tests done on potato to find Chlorothalonil, by CFIA, between 2008 and 2016.

This is also included in the book Poison Foods of North America.

 

Glyphosate over forests

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Glyphosate over forests

I got a question from Kevin Proteau of BC, in relation to spraying of glyphosate over forests. I decided to tell my story directly into a Camera, for record.

BC has been using glyphosate over its forests for decades. I had made a freedom of information request to the BC government to let me know how much (by weight) glyphosate had been sprayed over BC forests by logging corporations from the beginning till date.

I learned that:

1) Glyphosate is routinely used, for many years

2) The details are neither completely held by ministry of forest management, nor the ministry of environment, but in bits and pieces here and there. As a result they could not give me any year upon year total (which I had asked) of amount of glyphosate sprayed over BC Forests.

3) The BC Government asked me if I was prepared to dole out several hundred dollars extra for the information since the request needs more man-hours than stipulated and would require the government to write to all the logging contractors, who might have better records, to furnish the information, to be tallied and tabulated by the Government, and then given to me.

I refused to pay several hundred dollars, but settled to get a small portion of the information that the BC Government had, sketchy and in a rather incomplete list for only a few years, for around $100.

And so, the answer is – two fold:

A) Yes, glyphosate is routinely sprayed over BC forests

B) Nobody knows how much of it has been sprayed. The Government is not keeping tab on it.

On a separate request to the BC Government, I asked to be shown what document it had seen that glyphosate was safe to be used over BC forests, from the point of view of forest ecosystem and wildlife. I got only a vague answer that the product was approved by Health Canada.

This answer indicates, to me that

C) Nobody in the BC Government has seen any evidence that glyphosate is safe to be sprayed over our forests.

D) Since Health Canada, far as I know, has never conducted nor sighted any test on effect of glyphosate on environment, and has only presumably seen tests of glyphosate in mammalian food, which it refuses to disclose to the people – that there has not been any tests seen by anybody in Canada, and as far as I can tell, anybody else anywhere else either, that glyphosate is at all safe to be sprayed over our forests, for sustainability of our biological diversity, our flora and fauna, our wildlife or out environment.

Thank you
Tony Mitra

A book about Mother Teresa

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One of the books I intend to read shortly, from Christopher Hitchens. This provides a counter argument to the theory of service in the name of God and about how good or questionable might have Mother Teresa of Kolkata been.

I will not buy it from Amazon, nor buy a paperback or kindle version.
I shall instead buy an audible version and “listen” to it while working on something else.
Audio books are the preferred format for me, on non-fiction issues of social significance.

Chis Hitchens is one of the original thinkers of our time, and so his opinion might be worth checking. But there is more.

I don’t completely believe this is sensationalism or pushing fake news. I come from the same town she worked all her life in – Kolkata.
My mother personally met her. That is not to say she was against Mother Teresa, but rather, was ambivalent. I have met a few nuns that worked in her organization both in India and in the US. I found them rather earthly and interested in earthly issues, not unlike you and me. I am keeping an open mind here and intend to read the book first, before passing opinion.

Also, strictly speaking – this is not so much news per se, as it is a book of opinion, by Chris Hitchens.

Lastly, I have another instinctive, and somewhat knee-jerk, opinion that missionaries, of any religion, do more harm than good in poor countries. This is a feeling that will not go away easily, because of the weight of evidence across the globe, going several centuries and perhaps even millennia.

Direct Democracy?

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There is a news from Paris, where the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed that the French Parliament be trimmed by a third because it is too top heavy and has too much bureaucracy and has gotten slow and inefficient.

The article came up here.

This is an interesting idea – to cut the French Parliament of excess fat and trim it by a third.

I believe time is ripe for not just trimming the fat, but to radically overhaul our parliament and question the very need to have Members of Parliament at all.

IN the time gone by, there was a need for representative of the people to go to the Capital, and vote on bills, representing the wish of the constituents that elected the member.

Today, two things have happened that makes the job of the Member of Parliament redundant:

1) The elected public servant no more votes according to the wish of the people. Rather, he or she votes according either to the diktat of the party boss, or whoever funds her campaign, such as lobby groups and corporations. In short, the elected official has become a traitor to the constituents.

2) In todays world of internet and instant communication, it is not too difficult to set up system where each voter can either log in from home, or in a nearby Government kiosk, and vote once a week or once a month on a number of pending issues – or decide to abstain, thus exerting “direct democracy” instead of proxy democracy through middlemen that betray the people.

There is a case for direct democracy, and cut the fat much deeper.

Think about it, Mr. Macron of France and think about it, Canadians.

Many of these observations first came from me through social media such as Facebook. But I am storing them here as I believe some day they might deserve to be  part of a book of essays.