Monthly Archive for March, 2011

The first bees of spring

Published on March 28, 2011 in Pollinators. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Bee on blossom in UC Davis Experimental College Community GardenThe first blooms of spring have me thinking of pollinators. What comes to mind when you hear the word “pollinator”? Butterflies, moths, flies, birds and even bats are important pollinators, but the one most people probably think of is the honey bee, Apis mellifera.

The honey bee is currently used to pollinate more than a third of crop plants and without them the world food supply would have problems. Unfortunately, these bees have problems of their own.  Imported from Europe, they are being plagued by a variety of diseases and pests such as mites. Widespread pesticide use puts even more pressure on already struggling hives. Native bumblebees are also in decline from disease and habitat loss.

The future of agriculture may rely on nurturing healthy populations of native bees and other pollinators. Most native bees are solitary and the current model of trucking hives from crop to crop, following the blooms, is not practical for these species. Many native bees are tiny and look more like flies than the fuzzy, black and yellow striped icon most people hold in their mind. Instead of making honeycombs, native bees live in a variety of habitats. Some dig labyrinths into loose dirt, leaving an egg on a ball of pollen in each chamber before flying off and starting a new nest. Some commandeer old beetle tunnels in dead wood.

Different groups of bees are best for different crops. Squash bees feed their offspring only on the pollen from cucurbits. The blue orchard bee is a promising replacement for honey bees in almond and other orchards. Almond crops require the highest number of beehives per acre for a good yield. With blue orchard bees, as few as 400 female bees per acre can do the job of 10,000 to 25,000 honey bees. An active native bee population can also help imported honey bees pollinate crops more thoroughly. Sunflower crops with native bee activity had more than double the seed set of crops without, because the competition made the honey bees switch flowers more often and spread pollen more widely. Other native bees help wind pollinated crops. Tomatoes set more and heavier fruit with buzz pollinating bees (like bumble bees) around.

Habitat plants to host native pollinators are similar to what you’d plant to encourage beneficial insects. Bees need a constant source of nectar and pollen, so wildflower mixes should have something blooming year round. To increase pollination of crops, it is best to have flowers that bloom right before and after the crop so that the bees are more likely to forage in your crop. Dead heading or mowing wildflower stands while the crop is in bloom may help drive more bees into your field.

For nesting, there should be un-tilled areas of bare, loose soil for the ground nesting bees and woodpiles for tunnel nesters. Some people make bee condos by drilling holes in blocks of wood or bundling together hollow reeds or bamboo. Bumblebees like to use abandoned rodent holes, bunchgrasses, and low growing shrubs. The Xerces Society has regional information on native pollinators and the local plants that host them.

In recognition of the role that pollinators play in the health of people and ecosystems, the US Senate designated a National Pollinator Week in 2007 and some states followed suit in recognizing a week of pollinator awareness. This year National Pollinator Week is June 20-26 and the Pollinator Partnership is urging every state to observe its own pollinator week this year. To help, contact your governor expressing your support for pollinator awareness. Or you can act even more locally by organizing pollinator education events in your community, like festivals, garden tours, workshops, lectures, and photography contests.

-Alia Tsang

Acceleration of GE Seed Use

Published on March 27, 2011 in Genetically Engineered Crops and Organic Standards. 0 Comments Tags: , .

This coming growing season, genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa is for the first time going to be added to the GE soy and GE corn that is fed to most livestock in the US. This is the result of an unexpected decision made a few weeks ago by the USDA. The genes in the seeds were altered by the insertion of foreign genes so that the alfalfa won’t die from sprays of glyphosate herbicide (Roundup).

Roundup has been sprayed intensively for about a decade on GE soy and GE corn with the result that the weeds evolve on the farms to be resistant to Roundup. The Roundup Ready gene trait apparently loses its benefit to the farmer within about four years, and some say herbicide resistance problems begin showing up by the second year. Yet there is no protection for neighboring non-GE plants from permanent contamination by drift and insect movement of the GE pollen to non-GE plants. This is of special concern in Mexico, the homeland of many wild varieties of corn, now that Monsanto is being allowed to market GE corn seed there.

With the release of the GE alfalfa, there may be a decline in availability of organic animal feed required for organic meat, dairy, and egg production. There is a low tolerance for GE contamination for certified organic products. Wholesale buyers test to see if organic products are contaminated. Each purchasing company and country can set its own tolerances for contamination of conventional and organic food. Organic animal products could become more scarce and expensive in the US and farmers may lose exporting opportunities to countries that have outlawed GE foods. A farmer may have followed organic practices and have a certified organic label and never bought GE seed, but if the test shows contamination that happened unknowingly from drift from a non-organic farm, a buyer that requires a certain tolerance has to reject it. If it is highly perishable, it might become unmarketable even in non-organic distribution channels or have to be sold at a lower price.

Some suggest that the allowance for GE contamination in organic standards could be raised. Dr. Charles Benbrook of The Organic Center states that the amount of contamination from drift onto organic alfalfa farms is not going to be enough to worry consumers.

It is hard to keep up with the science around this issue or understand it well enough to follow the debate. There are people on both sides who are very passionate about their point of view and many who state their argument in extremes. The word from Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, and partner company Forage Genetics, producer of the GE alfalfa seed, is that spraying Roundup for weed control on these GE crops makes the food cheaper due to lower costs for weeding. They say this technology is necessary to feed a hungry world.  Experts in sustainable agriculture disagree, opposing such intensive use of herbicides that harm the soil ecology. They recommend the precautionary principle when discussing GE,  fearing that GE crops could be a dangerous threat to more stable biologically intensive farming systems that have been shown capable of providing for community food security everywhere. Organic systems can produce food more reliably, and this food also has more nutrition and higher levels of various health-supporting antioxidants and other factors, according to The Organic Center.

If GE food is valuable to society, why would producers not take pride in putting that on the food label?  The Center for Food Safety says that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never developed federal rules to protect consumers from the food safety risks of genetically engineered foods. Unlike crops from traditional breeding, genetically engineered crops contain antibiotic-resistant marker genes, viral promoters and foreign proteins never before consumed by humans or livestock animals. The FDA relies on GE seed manufacturing companies to assess their safety. How much of non-organic sources of garden seeds is contaminated? Under current regulations Americans don’t have enough choice to be able to protect themselves from an unknown threat in the food supply even when they grow their own vegetables.

- Jan Dietrick