Hamster prefers organic

From The Cook's Den.

By the way, it does seem as if the BBC has continued its preoccupation with hamsters.  I blogged about it here.
Go to BBC News and search for hamster; you'll see what I mean.

Organic facts of the week

• If organic farming methods were practiced on all the planet's food-growing land, it would be like taking more than 1.5 billion cars off the road.

• You can increase your antioxidant intake by 30 percent by choosing organic.
• The average child in America is exposed to five pesticides daily in their food and drinking water.
• The U.S. water system is regularly contaminated above safe limits immediately following chemical fertilizer applications to farm fields.
• Farms in developing countries that use organic techniques produce an average of 79% more than farms that don't. From the Organic Consumers Association

Photo from digiyesica's photostream at Flickr - Creative Commons

Colony Collapse Disorder: bees continue to die

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) hit the public consciousness last year with news that nearly one-third of all commercial beehives had died-- collapsed. This year has been quieter but the news is no better-- an increase of 13% over last year brings losses to more than one-third through the winter of 2007-08, according to the USDA.

The USDA isn't telling all it knows, however. On August 18, The Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to force it to reveal any connections between pesticide use and CCD. According to the Organic Consumers Association,

"Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny," said NRDC Senior Attorney Aaron Colangelo. "EPA should be evaluating the risks to bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public what it knows. Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should be using to make those decisions?"

In 2003, EPA granted a registration to a new pesticide manufactured by Bayer CropScience under the condition that Bayer submit studies about its product's impact on bees. EPA has refused to disclose the results of these studies, or if the studies have even been submitted. The pesticide in question, clothianidin, recently was banned in Germany due to concerns about its impact on bees. A similar insecticide was banned in France for the same reason a couple of years before. In the United States, these chemicals still are in use despite a growing consensus among bee specialists that pesticides, including clothianidin and its chemical cousins, may contribute to CCD.

Although no full-scale study has yet taken place, organic beehives have been largely immune to CCD. CCD also does not affect solitary bees. Go Prairie has a post about the amazing number of bees in the U.S. Unfortunately, given that one third of every mouthful of food we eat is pollinated by domesticated bees, we are scarcely out of the woods.

Want to help do your part to protect bees in your own back yard? NRDC has the following suggestions:

Bee Friendly, Bee Safe: Here's How

You can also help keep bees healthy by making your yard and garden colorful, diverse and pesticide free. Here are some tips on how you can Bee Safe:

• Bee Native: Use local and native plants in your yard and garden. These plants thrive easily and are well suited for local bee populations, providing pollen and nectar for bees to eat.


• Bee Diverse: Plant lots of different kinds of plants in your yard. Plant diversity ensures that your garden attracts many different varieties of bees and gives them a range of flowering plants to choose from throughout the year. Make sure your yard plants vary in:
• Color: Bees have good vision and are attracted to several different colors of flowers.
• Shape: Different species of bees are better suited for different shapes of flowers. Give your bees some variety!
• Flowering times: Having a sequence of plant species that flower throughout the year helps sustain the food supply and attract different species of bees.


• Bee Open to Pollen: Pollen is bee food. Genetically engineered pollen-free plants trick bees into thinking they'll find food, and then leave them hungry. (Don't worry, flower pollen isn't a big contributor to most people's allergies.)


• Bee Pesticide Wary: There are many natural methods to control pests in your garden. Researchers believe pesticides are a contributing factor to Colony Collapse Disorder. Moreover, some insecticides are harmful to bees and wipe out flowers that provide bees with food. If you must, use targeted pesticides and spray at night -- when bees aren't active -- on dry days.


• Bee a Hive Builder: Building your own bee hive is easy and fun. Creating a wood nest is a good place to start -- wood-nesting bees don�t sting! Simply take a non-pressure treated block of wood and drill holes that are 3/32 inch to 5/16 inch in diameter and about 5 inches deep and wait for the bees to arrive.

Photo of a bee house from *Susie's* photostream at Flickr.

Organic Consumers: Small farms more profitable

SMALL FARMS ARE MORE PRODUCTIVE AND PROFITABLE

• A 1,000 acre U.S. corporate farm growing genetically engineered crops nets an average of $39 an acre.
• In contrast, a four-acre family farm nets, on average, $1,400 per acre.
• Small organic farms are proving to be even more profitable. With oil prices on the rise, growing food without petroleum-based pesticides/fertilizers, and delivering that food to local markets will quickly prove to be the most affordable food available.

Source: New York Times
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_12216.cfm

Very hopeful, informative article on the roots of Community Supported Agriculture at Rodale, which is where the photo is from, including mention of Indian Line Farm is South Egremont, MA.

Bees not making a recovery, situation worse

Now that spring is here and the state of wintered over bees can be assessed, the news is not good. A survey conducted by the Agricultural Research Service and the Apiary Inspectors of America among beekeepers reported a 36% loss of colonies over the winter, on top of a 17% loss last year. Colony Collapse Disorder continues to make inroads among the bee population. Science Daily.

The Buffalo News has an in-depth article on how bees are faring in New York. Honey production fell by 20% to 40% last year, but the real problem is pollination: Up to 70% of what we eat is pollinated by insects. New York beekeepers are experiencing big losses; blueberries and apples are two important crops from New York that may be affected this year.

While agricultural specialists in every state are pulling out all the stops to discover the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, everything from cell phone towers to pesticides, The Organic Consumers Association is taking a more wholistic approach. Causes are probably multiple with any one of a number of factors pushing bees over the edge. (I think the human equivalent would be the huge increase in autoimmune disorders and the late development of allergies and asthma in adults.) The Association sees organic settings as providing a buffer for colonies. They have a very informative page up at their site.
Picture by Aussiegill at Flickr.

World Without Bees? Amen

Don't know if folks are aware (I wasn't, until recently) that there's a whole industry built around transporting colonies of bees thousands of miles to pollinate cherries, pears, apples, almonds and more. Seeing as life as we know it depends on bees, as I've heard about the massive die-offs, I've wondered: is this true around the world? What about in non-commercial hives? Well, here's part of the answer.

CATASTROPHIC BEE COLONY COLLAPSE IS NOT AFFECTING ORGANIC HIVES
As previously reported in Organic Bytes (Issue #104), beekeepers in 24 states are experiencing record losses of honeybees. Some states have reported up to 70% disappearances of commercial bee populations. Researchers are struggling to find the causes of this mysterious collapse. A crucial element of this story, missing from reports in the mainstream media, is the fact that organic beekeepers across North America are not experiencing colony collapses. The millions of dying bees are hyper-bred varieties whose hives are regularly fumigated with toxic pesticides by conventional beekeepers attempting to ward off mites. In contrast, organic beekeepers avoid pesticides and toxic chemicals and strive to use techniques that closely emulate the ecology of bees in the wild. Researchers are beginning to link the mass deaths of non-organic bees to pesticide exposure, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the common practice of moving conventional bee hives over long distances.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bees.cfm