Monoculture Disasters
What is more fundamental to human need than food? Water yes, and the air we breathe, but without food to fulfill our dietary/nutritional needs we'd be in a very dire, existential dilemma. Well, it seems we are facing a dilemma without directly recognizing it. Scientists, biologists do see the dilemma, but the consumer, not so much. We have not yet been faced with the imminence of collapse of our agri-food system.
Yet so much of our food, grown in farm fields throughout North America, and dependent on pollination by bees stands in real peril. Any time humankind interferes too broadly in a natural system, like the introduction of new species because someone has the brilliant idea that it might be beneficial, we are ultimately faced with a disaster. Species not native to a certain geography do not have natural enemies to control their spread. Often the introduced species aggravate the existence of native species.
Similarly, when agribusiness decides to formulate new grain species or fruits or vegetables and we end up with monoculture rather than a diversity of various types of the same, the spectre of a single pathogenic bacteria specific to that plant is capable of destroying an entire plant species, leaving plant scientists, botanists and biologists scrambling to retrieve some of those old heritage seeds to replace them.
The potato blight that so horribly afflicted Ireland in the 19th Century was caused by the replacement of various types of potato plants with a singular plant. The potato that was chosen was an inferior one, but more easily cultivated. That potato plant, upon whose nutrient value the Irish peasants and their animal stocks depended was a nasty, watery breed, susceptible to a plague that turned it into stinking, inedible, failed monocrop.
Originally in uninterrupted nature, it was wild bees that pollinated flowers and fruit trees continent-wide. Then the European honeybee was introduced and as the more biologically aggressive breed they gained the upper hand and wild bees declined. Ninety percent of apple crops would not flourish without honeybee pollination. Citrus fruit are dependent on pollination.
Honeybees pollinate canola, soybeans, broccoli, celery, asparagus, squash, cucumbers, peaches, berries and melons, among other crops. Common practise is to hire beekeepers on a circuit, to bring along their hives at specific seasons for pollination purposes. In the last five years, however, beekeepers have seen a quick and deadly decline in their beehives.
A dreadful and serious puzzle to scientists, it was finally concluded that a number of factors lead to the mass death of hives, including deadly mite infections along with moulds and other impacts - five in number - on the hives, weakening the bees, ensuring that new generations never materialized, and leading to the decomposition of the hive.
Now, out of Ontario at the University of Guelph a bee scientist feels he has a partial answer to the problem, in the varroa mite, the size of a pinhead. A parasitical mite that feeds off the bees that cannot dislodge it, leading to eventual death. Lack of adequate winter-stored food, other parasites, a fungus, and untenably-small colonies have been highlighted as other causes of "colony collapse disorder" (as it is termed in the U.S.) or "winter colony mortality" (in Canada).
Dr. Ernesto Guzman, of University of Guelph, feels that the varroa mite has managed to alter itself sufficiently so that pesticides normally used to cleanse hives no longer affect it mortally. Not all scientists agree with Dr. Guzman, claiming that the causes are too various in nature. A recent study points to healthier bees resulting from pollen from mixed sources rather than from a single pollen source.
Logically, a healthier organism is more able to fight off disease impacts, to survive biological assaults. And if we look at another living organism, say humankind, for example, it makes good sense. Humans too require a varied diet to ensure good health resulting from adequate vitamin, mineral and nutrient intake. Why should bees be any different than humans, requiring a varied diet for ultimate good health?
And there lies the rub as huge agricultural concerns continue their shift to mass production of single grain species; monoculture again.
Yet so much of our food, grown in farm fields throughout North America, and dependent on pollination by bees stands in real peril. Any time humankind interferes too broadly in a natural system, like the introduction of new species because someone has the brilliant idea that it might be beneficial, we are ultimately faced with a disaster. Species not native to a certain geography do not have natural enemies to control their spread. Often the introduced species aggravate the existence of native species.
Similarly, when agribusiness decides to formulate new grain species or fruits or vegetables and we end up with monoculture rather than a diversity of various types of the same, the spectre of a single pathogenic bacteria specific to that plant is capable of destroying an entire plant species, leaving plant scientists, botanists and biologists scrambling to retrieve some of those old heritage seeds to replace them.
The potato blight that so horribly afflicted Ireland in the 19th Century was caused by the replacement of various types of potato plants with a singular plant. The potato that was chosen was an inferior one, but more easily cultivated. That potato plant, upon whose nutrient value the Irish peasants and their animal stocks depended was a nasty, watery breed, susceptible to a plague that turned it into stinking, inedible, failed monocrop.
Originally in uninterrupted nature, it was wild bees that pollinated flowers and fruit trees continent-wide. Then the European honeybee was introduced and as the more biologically aggressive breed they gained the upper hand and wild bees declined. Ninety percent of apple crops would not flourish without honeybee pollination. Citrus fruit are dependent on pollination.
Honeybees pollinate canola, soybeans, broccoli, celery, asparagus, squash, cucumbers, peaches, berries and melons, among other crops. Common practise is to hire beekeepers on a circuit, to bring along their hives at specific seasons for pollination purposes. In the last five years, however, beekeepers have seen a quick and deadly decline in their beehives.
A dreadful and serious puzzle to scientists, it was finally concluded that a number of factors lead to the mass death of hives, including deadly mite infections along with moulds and other impacts - five in number - on the hives, weakening the bees, ensuring that new generations never materialized, and leading to the decomposition of the hive.
Now, out of Ontario at the University of Guelph a bee scientist feels he has a partial answer to the problem, in the varroa mite, the size of a pinhead. A parasitical mite that feeds off the bees that cannot dislodge it, leading to eventual death. Lack of adequate winter-stored food, other parasites, a fungus, and untenably-small colonies have been highlighted as other causes of "colony collapse disorder" (as it is termed in the U.S.) or "winter colony mortality" (in Canada).
Dr. Ernesto Guzman, of University of Guelph, feels that the varroa mite has managed to alter itself sufficiently so that pesticides normally used to cleanse hives no longer affect it mortally. Not all scientists agree with Dr. Guzman, claiming that the causes are too various in nature. A recent study points to healthier bees resulting from pollen from mixed sources rather than from a single pollen source.
Logically, a healthier organism is more able to fight off disease impacts, to survive biological assaults. And if we look at another living organism, say humankind, for example, it makes good sense. Humans too require a varied diet to ensure good health resulting from adequate vitamin, mineral and nutrient intake. Why should bees be any different than humans, requiring a varied diet for ultimate good health?
And there lies the rub as huge agricultural concerns continue their shift to mass production of single grain species; monoculture again.
Labels: Environment, Nature, Nutrition
posted by Pieface @ 7:28 PM
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