The earth’s population is predicted to reach nine billion by 2050 with increasing demand for food, water, fuel, and arable land. Industrial agriculture that dominates food production today is highly dependent upon chemicals and fossil fuel for crop production and transportation. Industrial agriculture typically employs large-scale plantings of a single species of a genetically modified crop, heavy tilling equipment, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, plus large amounts of irrigation water. Mark Bittman, writing today in The New York Times, suggests that another model of crop production more closely resembling organic farming may be a better solution for feeding the world. Organic practices rely less upon chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. A blended model of farming employing the best practices of both industrial and organic agriculture may be a sustainable alternative. See http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/sustainable-farming/?src=me&ref=homepage as well as Andrew Revkin’s analysis at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/a-hybrid-path-to-feeding-9-billion-on-a-still-green-planet/. Those skeptical of elements of industrial agriculture, like the use of GMOs or genetically modified organisms, must be willing to accept the reality of the safe use of GMO foods over a number of years. Also, GMO crop planting allows for reductions in insecticide usage and increased use of no-till farming practices. Likewise, producers growing crops under industrial conditions must realize that the large-scale planting of mono-cultural crops, heavy use of chemical herbicides and pesticides, and elimination of “turn-rows” or crop margins has added to the serious decline of beneficial insect pollinators. The loss of honey bees and other pollinators adversely affects all agricultural growers.
Just as a blended model of crop production may prove to be a more sustainable design for the future, a blended model of integrated pest management may be the best choice for managing honey bee colonies. The repeated use of bee hive chemicals designed to kill parasitic mites and suppress American foulbrood resulted in resistant strains of mites and bacteria. The complete abandonment of bee hive mite chemicals is not successful except with bees bred for genetic mite resistance. Today’s photo: industrial agriculture: mono-cultural winter wheat.
--Richard
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Thank you for giving people some facts based on your experience. So many bloggers spout rhetoric without basing it on anything but opinion. And thank you for your website. It is very informative! It's because of bee lovers and beekeepers like you that I am now much less afraid of bees and welcome them into my yard. (I have some big round bumbles living under garden bricks near my front door, which seem to have given me lots more lovely flowers throughout my yard--and fewer salesmen at my door! he-he) May I ask if you have any info or experience with CCD? I would be thankful for anything you post.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
ReplyDeleteThank you. I appreciate your kind comment.
Peace Bee Farm experienced heavy losses in the spring of 2007. Some of the losses may have been CCD, and other losses may have resulted from nutritional problems from the fall of 2006. Monocultural plantings, drought, or adverse weather conditions can lead to honey bee nutritional problems. Inadequate nutrition adds to colony stress, an underlying element in CCD. See my May 15, 2011 posting, “Four Years of CCD.” I hope that its summary helps answer some questions.
--Richard