
Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply - jonastern
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/science/decline-of-species-that-pollinate-poses-a-threat-to-global-food-supply-report-warns.html
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moonshinefe
The cynic in me wonders if we're simply doomed to having these useful species
die off at this point. We've killed off a great deal of nature already, and it
seems the major voting populations in our democracies are insulated enough in
concrete cities and modern conveniences to not really care enough to force
politicians to address these issues. And also, there's not much money in it
compared to other courses of action.

~~~
kotach
There's a lot of money in agriculture. Increased demand of food due to
exponential growth of the population. Increased demand for luxurious food like
meat due to exponential economic growth of the population.

Long term, it is the most economically sustainable business from the
perspective of the business owner.

Long term, it is the largest polluter of all, and is unsustainable in its
core. The reason why pollinating species are disappearing is the unsustainable
nature of animal husbandry and agriculture. To meet the demand you have to
pesticide-the-crap out of your grain fields, and there's a lot of grain fields
for your animals. Not much for humans.

~~~
shanev
Some farmers say it's possible to run holistically managed farms that produce
the same or higher yields than industrial farms if run properly. The issue is
changing policy and subsidies to make this a reality. As a side effect we'll
get more grass cover which sequesters carbon and healthier meat with more
omega 3.

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adwn
> _The agricultural system, for which pollinators play a key role, creates
> millions of jobs worldwide._

This sentence feels weird and misplaced. Compared with the agricultural
system's main task – keeping us from starving to death – its role as a job
provider seems utterly insignificant.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Quite a lot of agricultural isn't to keep people from starving to death -
think hemp, cotton, tea/coffee, sugar cane, natural rubber, chocolate, and
coca in places it is legal. None of those things prevent people from starving
at all.

A lot of agricultural foodstuff is terribly inefficient at meeting the goal of
"keeping people from starving." We grow them though (and produce in the case
of meat) because humans really enjoy them. If the main goal was to prevent
starvation we wouldn't produce resource-intensive food products or we would
produce them in moderation.

Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have a
large demand though.

~~~
proksoup
> Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have
> a large demand though.

I'm maybe just repeating what the parent comment said, but that seems
backwards to me.

If we treat agriculture's purpose as economy for economy's sake, which we have
been doing, it seems counter-productive to our goals of staying alive
sustainably.

~~~
swe
This really should be no surprise. Mainstream economics practices that the
environment is a subset of the economy and not the other way around.

"Sure, I can live without fresh water and clean air, but a market? I need a
market." /s

~~~
brightball
If you lack fresh water and clean air, there would be a market for fresh water
and clean air. :-)

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TheLogothete
There is a startup in my country which tries to help the situation.

[http://www.beesmarttechnologies.com/](http://www.beesmarttechnologies.com/)

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johansch
"The causes of the pressure on these creatures intertwine: aggressive
agricultural practices that grow crops on every available acre eliminate
patches of wildflowers and cover crops that provide food for pollinators.
Farming also exposes the creatures to pesticides, and bees are under attack
from parasites and pathogens, as well."

Seems like this should self-regulate quite well. If there are no bees to
pollinate the crop that needs pollination, the "aggressive agricultural
practices" would no longer be economical and the land would be naturally
reclaimed.

~~~
maxerickson
A lot of field crops self or wind pollinate. Corn, wheat, soy, rice, etc.

~~~
johansch
That's interesting, I didn't know.

Honest question though: Is this relevant to my argument?

~~~
maxerickson
I think so, the lack of pollinators won't curtail aggressive practices
associated with those crops.

~~~
johansch
Seems like basic economics would still make things work out in the end, at
least on a macro level.

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coldcode
Once the availability of food declines people will decide to do something
about it. The only question is is it then too late? Or is it to late for some
and not others?

~~~
cfontes
Things are always done at the last minute... We Humans as a group seam to only
respond to people dying in huge numbers.

Just look at all other cases of man made disasters all were known to be around
long before it happened and nothing was done to prevent them.

~~~
hidroto
>Just look at all other cases of man made disasters all were known to be
around long before it happened and nothing was done to prevent them.

This ignores the would-be disasters that were prevented.now i don't know any
of the top of my head and i imagine that they would be hard to find as they
would get less press.

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dpflan
Is there where robotics can truly saves us, with honey bee micro-drones
instead of autonomous vacuums and servants?

\--UPDATE-- Thanks, Harvard! Now, new research on robotic honey is needed...

[https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/05/robotic-insects-
ma...](https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/05/robotic-insects-make-first-
controlled-flight)

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Houshalter
I've read a few things about this issue and I'm not entirely sure how I feel.
There are a lot of alarmist comments and articles, and people who don't
understand what is going on because of them. This is going to be a stream of
my thoughts and things I've learned, not really arguing for any "side".

The main problem seems to be with honey bees, and in North America. Honey bees
_are not native_ , or wild. I believe they are somewhat inbred or at least
have a founder effect. And they are transported around the country every year
by farmers, spreading whatever pathogens they have to every colony rapidly.

We also steal their honey (and breed them to over produce it in the first
place). And in some cases replace it with shitty substitutes like corn syrup.
But I'm not a beekeeper and I'm sure they know what they are doing, but still.
It's not a very natural environment for the bees.

There are native species of bees. E.g. bumblebees. I do not know whether or
not they are declining. I found a single study about their long term
population. Some species are declining, but others are not. I am very confused
about this result and don't know what to make of it. These bees have an
advantage being native to this environment, having more genetic diversity, and
not being vulnerable to the same pathogens.

It's not clear if native bees would be able to take over for industrial
agriculture, which is optimized around honey bees.

The actual number of honey bee colonies in the US has not declined, despite
these issues. However this may be due to intensive efforts by farmers to keep
them alive, and operating at a loss. It might not be sustainable.

It's not clear if insecticides are really to blame. Since the insecticides in
question have been around for a long time before this was an issue. It's
likely a contributing factor though.

Mostly this affects the fruit industry. Most staple crops, or at least grains,
do not require insect pollination. Humanity is not at any risk of starving to
death, even in the worst case scenario.

Honey bees are actually super inefficient. In a farm in China, they died off,
so they had to pay humans to pollinate all the trees manually. Production
increased by 30%, since the bees missed a lot of flowers. While paying humans
is a bit expensive, it's possible technology could replace the need for honey
bees and improve agriculture.

On that note, we could also replace insecticides with better technology. E.g.
insect zapping lasers, or robots that seek them out. Chemical pesticides are
really really awesome, contrary to popular belief. But they do seem crude to
me.

And GM crops have literally nothing to do with any of this. As far as I can
tell. Glyphosate is a herbicide, not an insecticide.

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enmi2015
The glass bees...

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sschueller
If the cause is the use of gm crops and fertilizer it will be just a hand full
companies that managed to wipe our food supply for profit. I find that quite
amazing.

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iwwr
Fear not, along with Roundup and Roundup-ready crops you will also get
Roundup-ready beneficial bugs and pollinators.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
You know Roundup (glyphosate) is a herbicide, right? So that's a non-issue.

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frik
Some news story link the Volkswagen diesel scandal (and EURO6 norm/urea
resin), gen modified crops (eg. Monsanto) and artificial fertilizer too the
decline of such species (e. bees). We need independent research sponsored by
the WHO, and states have to punish the bad actors like VW.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That's a lot of conspiracy theory in one sentence. I'd be disappointed if the
WHO ran after every breath of witchcraft published in somebody's blog.

~~~
frik
I meant news stories from real rather reputable newspapers, not from random
blogs. Call it what you want. We just need objective independent research
about that topic, opinionated one won't help general public nor the bees and
other declining species.

~~~
ljf
Do you have any examples of those news stories?

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justsaysmthng
Maybe our taxonomy is wrong.. Maybe these insects should be considered part of
the "plant kingdom" ?

Given that [certain] plants cannot survive without (these) insects, it results
that (these) insects are an essential part of [those] plants.

Or, more grossly, (these) insects are actually part of the plant organisms.
For the plants they are a form of detachable reproduction organs.

The other way around:

Bees have external "organs" \- the plant part. The bees are part "animals",
part plants - they need the plant "organ" for nourishment and they choose who
the plant will mate with.

This way of looking at animals/plants has certain implications:

We can't just look at a peach garden without also considering the bees and
other insects required for the garden's long term survival. Why stop at bees ?
What about all the other insects/animals who depend on these "unified"
organisms ? Are they also part of some sort of larger "organism" ?

\---

See, the reason it is very difficult to address many of the complex problems
that we have in the world today is because we use these taxonomy systems (in
programming terms - "class hierarchies") - they define and limit our ability
to grasp the complexity of the full system.

And somehow, we maintain these taxonomy systems without refactoring them, even
though our understanding of nature has grown considerably after these systems
of categorization have been introduced many years ago.

Just like a well designed class hierarchy leads to a clean and efficient
application, so should the way we categorize things and beings in nature
determine the overall health of the whole system.

It is rarely possible to come up with the perfect class hierarchy from the
very beginning, since the problem is rarely clearly defined and changes over
time, so we refactor.

We need to keep our class hierarchies in sync with the objective reality and
the same should be done to taxonomy systems, otherwise "reality" doesn't quite
fit in our neatly defined boxes of boxes of boxes of things, like Kingdom,
Phylum, Class, Order, etc

