Exposure to Pesticides (in Rural and Small Town Living)? (farmers, acres, house)

[ErrorDetected]

Picture this:



What is the risk if you live *literally* next door (or surrounded on all sides of your property by) large, corporate farm owned fields? Will those mists make their way onto ands into your and your children's skin and lungs? Is it like an Erin Brokovich deal again an' again? Lil ol' *you*...versus Monsanto? lol.

I really do wonder though...

Also, I did a search and saw no results for this, please excuse me if I'm in error there/here!



Thanks.

[ErrorDetected]

Originally Posted by ErrorDetected

Picture this:

https://ibb.co/kHfTskL

Originally Posted by ErrorDetected

Also, I did a search and saw no results for this, please excuse me if I'm in error there/here!

https://ibb.co/BCz3CN0

Thanks!

[harry chickpea]

It all depends.

In general...
Farming is not corporate owned to any extent, to my knowledge. In part, that may be because of low profitability of that aspect of production, part may be liability concerns, and part may be related to taxes and incentives. Yes, there are farmers that own or lease a LOT of land. That is capitalism at work.

Profitability is the Damoclean sword that can drive farmers to bankruptcy. When you have a thousand acres, you don't use ANY costly chemical indiscriminately. The actual amount of Roundup used per acre is less than many suburban homeowners use on their tiny lawns - seriously, not a joke.

There are chemicals that are used that one might not expect. IIRC, ethane is used to kill cotton plants before harvest. I've no idea how that affects people. The nicotine based pesticides seem to be an issue for pollinators. Pesticides are highly regulated anyway. There are other chemicals that I would use without hesitation. Lime makes up a lot of the soil around here. Ammonium nitrate and the other nitrates are mostly concentrates of what occur in nature. An average lightning bolt creates plenty of nitrates.

Being around a GOOD farmer would be no issue for me. Being around a bad one... I once lived next to a field where waste whey was spread on a field without turning the soil to incorporate it. Whey is a decent soil amendment when applied properly, but all this application did was generate enough house and horse flies to qualify for one of the Egyptian plagues.

Applications of chicken litter may be a health issue if handled improperly. Worse, New York City likes to ship its crap to rural areas for spreading on fields. Not nice.

[Diana Holbrook]

Many of us responded to your other thread here a few days ago about this issue:

Has anyone lived on a corner piece of land outside a 'crop circle'? Thoughts on that.
https://www.city-data.com/forum/rura...iece-land.html


As I said there... it REALLY depends on what they're growing there, and what they're spraying. You need details to really make a decision about any particular specific area.