The Cost of Lawns

Some interesting perspective on the cost of planting lawns at the detriment of producing food.

GMO Factsheet

Fullsize

You can look at this from many angles.  Are there health concerns?  Are there environmental concerns?  Are we comfortable with the idea of being able to patent food?

Urban Honey from Hong Kong

Dwindling Crop Varieties

From this months National Geographic

Urban Bee Swarm

One way to stop loitering.

Tupelo Honey Harvest

Tupelo Honey Harvest

Thank our ancestors we are not starving.

Right now it is easy to see how dependent we are on modern technology to keep the world fed.  Larger, productive farms replacing subsistence farming around the world.  These practices for better or for worse keep mouths fed and bellies full.

But step back for a moment, just as the world couldn't have succeeded in growing the population to such enormous levels without improvements in farming methods, we wouldn't be here if it were not for our ancestors.

Many crops were domesticate through thousands of years of selective breeding and only exist today due to human intervention.  Take the brassica family:

About 2000 years ago Brassica oleracea was first domesticated and grown in Mediterranean gardens.  Growers kept seeds of the larger leafed plants and eventurally it became to what we know as kale today.  Following the developement of kale growers selected ever and ever more tight bunches of leaves at the top of the plant that in turn led to the formation of heads of cabbage over successive generations of selection.

About the same time cabbage came into existance successive growing of large rooted kale plants led to kohlrabi.

Later with a penchant for eating the flowering buds of the plant growers later developed cauliflower and broccoli.

Still later after that in Belgium the selection smaller buds on cabbage led to the cultivation of brussel sprouts.

So between 2000 years ago and 300 years ago 6 distinct vegetables were painstakingly developed by our ancestors.  This is but one plant that developed into several food crops, 2000 years in the making.  The full girth of this worlds population weighed heavily on the shoulders of our ancestors, without them we would probably not have variety cultivars to grow in many parts of the world and we would not have the variety to as easily make a balanced diet.

Talking to Strangers: honey birds

This is amazing that a wild bird becomes so tame and willing to help fetch honey.  If I could only find an eagle that would help me fish.

Who Killed the honeybee.

Great piece by the BBC on the die off of honeybees worldwide.  When trying to get to the bottom of what is going on I particularly like the analogy of going to the pharmacist and being asked what other medication you are taking to find out if there could be any negative interactions.  I think this approach gets to the crux of colony collapse disorder.  It is not one single thing in the environment but several working in congress and becoming toxic.  Unfortunately this gives cover to the pesticide and GMO manufacturers since by themselves they are not directly toxic to honeybees.

Links on Food and Bees

Victoria farmer working to bring back buzz of native bees

Alarmed at honeybee colony losses that reached 80 to 100 per cent last spring on Vancouver Island, a Victoria farmer is abuzz over a program she says will boost native bee populations that could replace the threatened honeybee.
Working with the Victoria-based land trust, The Land Conservancy, as an agricultural program assistant, Nathalie Chambers is leading the just-launched Pollinator Enhancement Program. The provincewide plan aims to improve conditions for native bees so that farmers are not as dependent on the honeybee, the dominant pollinator, originating in the Mediterranean area and brought to B.C. in 1858.

US food prices could surpass 2008 levels, says USDA

US food prices could surpass those seen during the 2008 food price crisis this year, as higher commodity and energy prices cause food makers to pass on costs, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The USDA predicted late last year that food prices would rise during 2011, and in recent weeks several major food manufacturers have said they intend to raise prices on the back of stronger commodity costs. The USDA had been saying since July that food price inflation – after dropping to its lowest rate in 18 years – would accelerate during 2011, by 2 to 3 percent. But it is only in the last week that the agency revised its forecast, saying that it predicts the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to rise by 3 to 4 percent during the year.

Bumblebees' disappearance 'alarming' 

Four species see 96-per-cent decline

- Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported yesterday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide.
They found a 96-per-cent decline in the numbers of the four species and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 per cent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss.
"We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calling the findings "alarming."
"These are one of the most important pollinators of native plants," said Sydney Cameron of the University of Illinois, who led the study.