Food Chain Radio Show #1151

Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist

Competing With Pests

Guests: Thomas Wittman Gophers Limited

Can we control pests without harming ourselves?

We build up our farms, gardens and homes to provide for our needs, but they have needs too, and so they sneak right in and steal everything we thought was ours.

They are the aphids that suck the life out of crops, the deer that jump the fence and eat the roses, the gophers that tunnel in and eat the roots from underneath the new peach tree. There is the raccoon that marches the entire family in through the dog door to wreak havoc in the kitchen, the rats that move in and foul up the place with their fleas and fecal matter and the skunks that waddle through as if not to be denied by anyone or anything.   

And here’s the rub – if we do not control them, they will control us!

One way to control pests is to poison them, a skill at which we have become very adept.

Consider, for just one example, how we have genetically re-engineered plant crops like corn and soybeans to become lethal killers.  We have inserted genes into those crops so that we may now drench entire fields with glyphosate herbicides that kill all the weeds, but leave the crops unscathed.

And we have infused those crops with Bacillus thuringenensis, a bacteria that eats away the stomachs of those pests that dare take a nibble from a plant.

In fact, we have become so adept with our poisons that one farmer may now grow thousands of acres of crops with no insect or weed pests.  It’s a miracle!

But,  miracles have costs.  The poisons we use don’t just go away.  They become part of our world, and ourselves.  The glyphosate we use to kill weeds is now in our blood and bones.  The insecticide we use to kill mosquitos also kills pelicans.  And the poison we feed to rats we also feed to owls.

A different strategy to control pests is to outwit them.  This strategy will require us to do some serious thinking.  But, as Sun Tsu said in The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”

And, so today we go in search of ways to win a hundred pest control battles.

And who better to help us outwit pests than our friend Thomas Wittman, Non-Toxic humane pest control expert, Gophers Limited.

Leave a comment below: Can we control pests without harming ourselves?

Tune in here, for the syndicated the Michael Olson Food Chain Radio Show #1151 June 16, 2018 Saturday 9AM Pacific

Nationally syndicated Food Chain Radio airs live Saturday mornings 9-10AM Pacific.