Email:
R.Zimdahl@colostate.edu
Address:
Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States
Ecology, Education, Ethics, Evidence, Faculty, Facts, Future, Goals, Herbicides, History, Island empire, Management, Opposition, Paradigm, Pesticides, Production, Public health, Questions, Sustainability, Teaching, Technology, Risk, Values, Weed.
Agricultural scientists, farmers, ranchers, and the agriculture industry remain confident of their basic faith in the possibility of continued increasing production through intelligent use of ever more efficient agricultural technology and research. Increasing production has been and remains the accepted way to achieve the moral obligation of feeding a growing population. Therefore, the weed management scenario has become one of the important factors. This brief essay questions if agriculture’s moral justification will hold as widespread, rational scientific and moral arguments about human and environmental harm, public fear of technology, and concern about food quality dominate.