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THE VANISHING OF OUR BEES- BEE COLONY COLLAPSE
Food Chain Radio Show Host Michael Olson
Chensheng Lu, Ass Professor Environmental Health, Harvard Univ.
David Hackenburg Sr, Beekeeper, Hackenburg Apiaries
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Who, or what, is causing our bees to vanish?
Who, or what, is causing our bees to vanish?
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This right out of science fiction: You wake up one morning to discover that every single person in Chicago has simply disappeared without a trace, leaving their breakfast on the kitchen table! Poof! Gone!
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Then everyone in Denver, Tuscon, and Charlotte disappear, leaving nothing behind to say why they left, or where they have gone.
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Hard to believe something like that could happen, but it is happening to our bee colonies. One day the bees simply disappear, leaving their eggs and food behind. Poof! Gone!
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What makes the collapsing of our bee colonies especially interesting is the fact that bees are responsible for one-third of the food we eat. If bees disappear – and bees are disappearing – then our supply of food will diminish, and its costs will increase.
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So who, or what, is causing our bees to vanish?
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Some say the causes are natural, and include global warming, trachial mites, and malnutrition. “Its just nature,” they say.
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So who, or what, is causing our bees to vanish?
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Others say the causes are man-made, and point the finger at neonicotinoids (“new nicotine pesticide”) like acetamiprid, clothianidin and imidacloprid.
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The “neonics,” as they are called, are extremely efficient killers of invertebrate insect pests, and consequently are now used to coat most of the seeds planted in commercial corn and soybean crops. Though not considered pests, bees are invertebrate insects and vulnerable to neonics. “It’s people,” they say.
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Thus we have a difference of opinion on an issue of major significance to our food chain…
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Who, or what, is causing our bees to vanish?
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Food Chain Radio News Topic
OUT OF POVERTY INTO AFRICA
Food Chain Radio Show #925 • June 22, 2013 • Sat 9AM Pacific
Michael Olson hosts: Larry Jacobs & John Graham, Del Cabo Cooperative
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Can organic prosper in Africa?
Chances are you popped one of those organic cherry tomatoes into your mouth in the dead of a winter and, without a thought as to its origin, bit down to pop its sweetness. Let’s give that tomato a thought…
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Your cherry tomato may well have carried the Del Cabo brand, which means that it was the product of a cooperative of 400 small, organic farmers near the town of San Jose Del Cabo in Baja California, Sur. In fact, you may well have looked down on those farms while flying in to Cabo San Lucas to enjoy some winter fun in the sun.
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In 1985, Larry and Sandra Jacobs, organic farmers from Pescadero, California, decided to package some of that winter sunshine into organic cherry tomatoes and ship them north. But rather than growing the tomatoes themselves, they enlisted 10 small farmers to grow for them, and with that agreement, the Del Cabo Cooperative was born.
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By working together through the Del Cabo Cooperative, and with the partnership of Jacobs Farm in California, the small farmers of Baja were able to increase their annual incomes from $3,000 to $20,000.
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Today, the Del Cabo Cooperative consists of 400, give or take, small farmers in Baja, and the Jacobs Farm has grown into a company with over 60 employees in California.
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The Jacobs have now taken this economic model to Africa, which leads us to ask …
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FARMER ASSURANCE PROVISION /
MONSANTO PROTECTION ACT
Food Chain Radio Show #924 • June 15, 2013 • Sat 9AM Pacific
Michael Olson hosts: Terry Wanzek, Farmer & North Dakota Senator
They say there are two sides to every story, and that is most certainly true when it comes to the story about the genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, in our food chain.
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There is the side of producers, and there is the side of consumers.
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For producers, the technology of genetic engineering has made the job of growing food much easier. Before GMOs, a farmer had to go out into the fields to cull weeds and pests by hand and machine. With GMOs, crops can be sprayed with herbicides and infused with pesticides, and thus one farmer can now grow thousands of acres of crops with no weeds or pests.
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To protect this transformative technology, biotech agriculture lobbied government for a “Farmer Assurance Provision” that would allow their GMOs to be planted anywhere at anytime without interference from laws or courts.
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For a significant number of consumers, there is uncertainty with respect to the efficacy of eating foods that have been saturated in herbicides and infused with pesticides, and they have taken to calling that government Provision the “Monsanto Protection Act.”
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Two sides of the story: Farmer Assurance Provision or Mansanto Protection Act.”
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And so we ask…
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What does agriculture hope to accomplish with its Farmer Assurance Provision? Why do many call the Farmer Assurance Provision the Monsanto Protection Act? And…
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What’s to eat in the Monsanto Protection Act?
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Food Chain Weekly News Topic
TO TEST, OR NOT TO TEST, ORGANIC FOOD
Food Chain Radio Show #923 • June 8, 2013 • Sat 9AM Pacific
Michael Olson hosts: Mischa Popoff, Author Is It Organic
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Are all foods labeled “organic” organic?
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File this under Michael Olson’s Third Law of the Food Chain: The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in our food.
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On average, the food we eat now travels well over a thousand miles from where it was grown. As a consequence of this distance, we are losing track of who is growing our food, and how they are growing it. One way to regain some control over the food we eat is to buy food that displays the “Certified Organic” label.
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The organic food industry is expected to grow from $60 billion today to $105 billion in 2015 on our desire to buy food that is clean and wholesome.
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Foods that have been certified “organic” are to be grown and processed without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and to not contain genetically-modified organisms or GMOs. At least, that is what we want to believe, and what industry wants us to believe, but is it true?
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Are all foods labeled “organic” organic?
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Hits: 433
