A Movie: The Vanishing of the Bees

The Vanishing of the Bees

More Good News on Food

Low-input farming projects, not reliant on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, have brought significant increases in food production in Africa, south-east Asia and South America, according to a UN report.  Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in Africa by using ecological methods rather than chemical fertilisers. In a review of agroecological farming projects, which focus on a minimal use of external inputs, like chemical fertilisers, in favour of controlling pests and disease with natural predators, mixed crop and livestock management and agroforestry (interplanting of trees and crops), the report found average increases in crop yield of 80 per cent in 57 less-industrialised countries. In Africa the average increase was 116 per cent....  Conventional farming relies on expensive inputs, degrades soils, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks. It simply is not the best choice anymore today.  Schutter said in the long run agroecological farming would build long-term resilience for countries and make them less reliant on expensive imports based on oil and gas, chemicals and pesticides.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/805229/agroecological_farming_can_double_food_production_in_africa_over_next_10_years.html

Like to Eat?

If you like to eat, we best do something about our 'lifestyle" in North America.

The UN on Thursday expressed alarm at a huge decline in bee colonies under a multiple onslaught of pests and pollution, urging an international effort to save the pollinators that are vital for food crops. Much of the decline, ranging up to 85 percent in some areas, is taking place in the industrialised northern hemisphere due to more than a dozen factors, according to a report by the UN's environmental agency. They include pesticides, air pollution, a lethal pinhead-sized parasite that only affects bee species in the northern hemisphere, mismanagement of the countryside, the loss of flowering plants and a decline in beekeepers in Europe.  "The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century," said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.  "The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees," he added.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/UN-alarmed-at-huge-decline-in-bee-numbers/articleshow/7676603.cms

Remember my post on the fertile soils (terra preta)  created by First Nations people in the Amazon?  The same soils that have maintained their fertility for  hundreds of years without fertilizers made from oil while being fantastically productive?  We could create the same kind of soils in Canada. and farm and garden organically.   Then, perhaps we wouldn't destory the ecosystems upon which we depend.  Our survival will be measured and secured by these kinds of step - seemingly small, labour intensive, steps that one can take ina community garden.

"But in a sense they are an indicator of the wider changes that are happening in the countryside but also urban environments, in terms of whether nature can continue to provide the services as it has been doing for thousands or millions of years in the face of acute environmental change," he added.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/UN-alarmed-at-huge-decline-in-bee-numbers/articleshow/7676603.cms








 

Honeybee Collapse and Pesticide Use

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy....US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. "We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies," said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS's bee research laboratory....The AIA survey doesn't give you the full picture because it is only measuring losses through the winter. In the summer the bees are exposed to lots of pesticides. Farmers mix them together and no one has any idea what the effects might be.

Yet more evidence that we are addicted to oil.  Petroleum is used as the source in the  manufacture of many modern pesticides.  Yet, by using them, we are destroying our food supply.  Ironic.....

BC Government Is Changing Cosmetic Pesticide Legislation

The Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria is encouraging you to "learn about provincial government's plans to ban the sale and use of cosmetic chemical pesticides through legislation."
http://www.elc.uvic.ca/
Please click on the link above - scroll down slightly to Cosmetic Pesticide Legislation - and read the ELC's response which is intended to assist citizens in drafting their own response to the Ministry of Environment's questions on  pesticide use.  

This is our opportunity to have our voices heard - please draft a response and forward it to the BC governemnt.  I'll post mine on this website as soon as I can.