Cyanide, Aflatoxin, Toxic Nitrate Concentrations & More - The 2012 Drought's Bonuses

[hatrack]

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Cattle are being poisoned by cyanide-laced weeds in Arkansas. Across the Midwest water-soluble fertilizers are concentrating in soils and plants, making them harmful rather than productive. And in Missouri, samples suggest that more than half the corn crop isn't fit for human consumption, thanks to unusually high levels of a carcinogenic toxin.

For farmers coping with the worst drought to hit the United States in decades, it's another chapter in an unfolding disaster that shows no sign of abating. And with climate projections showing more frequent summer droughts in heavy farming areas, these elevated drought-related poisons add to the challenges growers face in a changing climate.

"I've been talking to veterinarians and other folks in Iowa since June, and I'd estimate somewhere around 150 cattle have died from toxic nitrate doses," said Steve Ensley, a toxicologist at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine. The annual tally is usually less than five, he said.

With nitrate, drought spurs high levels because plants take up nitrogen, applied as a fertilizer, but cannot convert it into useful compounds due to a lack of water. "If the plant doesn't go through photosynthesis because it doesn't have the water to, the nitrate just stays in the plants," Ensley said. Nitrate isn't toxic to animals. But microorganisms in the environment convert it to a compound that, at high levels, inhibits oxygen flow in animals, resulting in difficulty breathing, weight loss, lack of appetite, sometimes death.

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http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/10/drought-toxins

[Javaman]

1. Read the book "Fast Food Nation".

it will give you a very good insight into what factory farm cattle actually consume.