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Bees are essential to the almond industry, and billions are dying in the process
- ars 7y agoThis article doesn't seem to care all that much about accuracy. They just care about being dramatic. For example: "glyphosate ... has been shown to be lethal to bees as well as cause cancer in humans" Neither clause is true. I don't feel like doing a line by line of the rest, but this is a garbage article.
- hactually 7y agohttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-017-0689-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-017-0689-0 Glyphosate/RoundUp etc has been shown to have high toxicity for bees and many other animals including humans. It _was_ considered safe, new data and better science has changed that stance. The article isn't garbage.
- eitland 7y agoSupporting this. I grew up with this stuff and while the ones I know would always use protective gear it was considered safe and the protection was used just to be really sure it seemed. Today the situation is a lot more nuanced. ...and as I write this I think I could feel the smell of roundup or another herbicide, so yeah I've been exposed it :-/
- CameronNemo 7y agoSeems the problem is pesticide use, not necessarily almond cultivation. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, but there are few good protein sources available today and tree nuts are plentiful in my region. It is hard to imagine that those cow farms in the central valley and elsewhere are any more moral or sustainable.
- torrance 7y agoI think the issue with almonds is that by growing them in massive monoculture you create bee deserts for the majority of the year when the almonds aren't flowering. Once the flowers disappear, any remaining bees will starve until the next year. So this criticism could be leveled essentially against almost any large scale monoculture crop. I'd be interested to know why almonds (and avocados) are usually highlighted here. Are other flowering crops typically grown in more diverse environments?
- lonelappde 7y agoWhich other crops rely on bee pollination? Soy? Corn? Fruits?
- adrian_mrd 7y agoA lot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinat...
- pfdietz 7y agoSoy is self-fertile, while corn is wind pollinated.
- amelius 7y agoI'm not sure that is the issue, because beekeepers would move elsewhere after the almond season, right?
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoThere just aren’t enough bees locally to pollinate the hundreds of thousands of acres of almonds that all flower at the same time. And you have to pollinate every flower to get a nut. It’s remarkable what California almond industry has achieved. It’s also unsustainable and harmful to bees.
- hinkley 7y agoOne of these documentaries was claiming that bees aren’t that excited about almond flowers and they will choose anything else to pollinate over them. This to explain why you see almonds growing essentially in dirt. Other flowers would outcompete. Personally I suspect there are plenty of plants that don’t overlap much with almond flowering that you could use.
- jkoudys 7y agoI'm definitely going to The Bad Place when I die, with all that almond milk I drink.
- Ghjklov 7y agoObsession is an interesting way to characterize one of the great alternatives to cow's milk for people who cannot consume dairy or refuse to support the torture of cows for their milk. The livelihood of bees or climate change? The duality of man.
- WilliamEdward 7y agoThis is full of lies, it is not an ethical alternative to cow's milk because it uses a ton of natural resources to produce. It is also foolish to say bees and climate change are mutually exclusive factors. Bees being alive will help curb climate change. You cannot live without bees in the world. Put the almond milk down.
- gridlockd 7y ago> This is full of lies, it is not an ethical alternative to cow's milk because it uses a ton of natural resources to produce. What doesn't take a ton of resources to produce while still being nutritious? What's unethical about taking natural resources to produce food in the first place? Nature is all about eating itself, perpetually. > You cannot live without bees in the world. That's a myth.
- klyrs 7y ago> What doesn't take a ton of resources to produce while still being nutritious? Absolutely? Nothing. Relatively? Just about anything but animals and nuts. Per gram of protein, nuts require more water than even beef: https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/ https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-...
- gridlockd 7y agoAnimals are pretty good at converting poor-quality plant protein into high-quality animal protein, along with certain micro-nutrients that plants do not contain at all, or at least not in a readily bio-available form. Also, water in and of itself isn't an exhaustible resource. If it becomes too expensive, water-hungry foods like almonds will simply price themselves out of the market.
- INTPenis 7y agoFrom my perspective over here in Malmö, Sweden it's sort of funny how americans have obsessed with Almond milk. The memes, the taunts and so on. Nobody I know drinks almond milk. We drink oat milk. The best manufacturer of oat replacement products for dairy is from this region of Sweden, Oatly. They make oat drinks, creams and ice cream. Personally at 35 I've stopped drinking milk altogether because it's a drink for juveniles. So I only use oat milk replacement in cooking.
- arcticfox 7y ago> milk is a drink for juveniles Lol from my perspective over here in America, I don't even know how to explain how silly that sounds.
- Lewton 7y agoYour reply sorta proves his point Americans are so obsessed with milk that the mere thought of not drinking it is seen as abnormal and weird That’s a pretty juvenile point of view, milk isn’t even particularly good for you
- rocgf 7y ago> milk isn’t even particularly good for you Well, it's not like the healthiness of foods is what guides the average American. With that said, I think it's not particularly relevant if anything is good for your or not, since a lot of what and how we eat is driven by culture, and not rooted into any underlying science or reason - e.g. three meals a day, cereal in the morning, milk for strong bones and so on. So yeah, drinking milk in the US is just a part of culture now, and I am convinced that all countries have similar quirks.
- serf 7y ago>Well, it's not like the healthiness of foods is what guides the average American. point me to the national culture that prioritizes food healthiness. Given that 'Americans' are so obviously not prioritizing that (apparently?), i'd like to see the opposite country, one where every individual prioritizes the health consequences of each and every meal. Extra credit for countries that eat healthy from imported food, and not just coincidentally healthy due to their local crops and harvests enforcing it as the cheaper and plentiful option. I won't hold my breath. Lots of anti-American sentiment around here. It's too bad that I seem to be the only one in this thread who thinks that these broad national generalizations of identity are actually hugely bigoted diatribe that has no real connection to the reality that we live in.. Guaranteed if I said something like "Germans all do.." i'd be flagged in minutes. I don't do that because 1) such statements are almost always false and 2) it's disrespectful and outside of what can happen in actual civil discourse. All I ask : Let's try to keep in mind that these big bad nations are actually full of individuals, all with different ideas and concepts of how to live our lives.
- aritmo 7y agoThe honey bee is the Western honey bee. Although some call to it the European honey bee, it is not a "bad import from Europe". This bee originated from Africa or Asia, before it got domesticated.
- jimnotgym 7y agoOne might wonder when looking at the almond monoculture, which looks like some kind of apocalypse, whether there isn't an alternative. How about seeding wild flowers between the rows, for instance, so bees can actually live there? In Europe it has become common to seed a headland around crops that is bug friendly, for one example. There are financial incentives for this in the subsidy too.
- coldcode 7y agoIt's an 11B a year business, so naturally monoculture is the first thing people think of to make even more. If the bees die off in increasing numbers the problem will solve itself in enough time (as in no more almonds). Same thing can be said of humans, if we do enough stupid things eventually nature will reclaim the world from us. Anderson Almonds clearly thinks differently and has none of the issues, but makes less money per acre so that would not interest the big growers. Maybe someday only Anderson will have almonds to sell...
- rapnie 7y agoThere is one example of this mentioned in the article. And, as you say, the guy does it differently, faces none of the problems.
- fredgrott 7y agoits not just wild flowers.. fro bees to sruvive winter its vetch mustard goldenrod alfa that will supply the full spring to fall diet for bees I put it in my father's garden every year as farmers have killed all that by the roadside
- asdff 7y agoAlmonds use way too much water and they shouldn't be grown in California. Over a gallon of water is needed to grow 1 almond. https://www.paesta.psu.edu/podcast/how-much-water-does-it-really-take-grow-almonds-paesta-podcast-series-episode-43 https://www.paesta.psu.edu/podcast/how-much-water-does-it-re...
- mschuster91 7y agoWhy is the water "wasted"? It doesn't go away like burning fuel or become irreversibly contaminated in the process.
- swiley 7y agoFrom what I understand in CA fresh water is in short supply due certain users essentially getting it for free. Also: remember that while water is part of a natural cycle, aquifers are used up and don’t get replenished.
- AuthorizedCust 7y agoMany aquifers do get replenished. It depends on the aquifer. For example, Texas's Edwards Aquifer, near San Antonio, has a large recharge zone.
- teh_klev 7y agoBecause it evaporates or seeps into the ground and is no longer in a useful form any more. That's why it's a "waste"ful use. > become irreversibly contaminated Well if you're spraying pesticides and fertilisers the water is likely being contaminated.
- pfdietz 7y agoAlso, minerals in the soil can contaminate drainwater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium_pollution
- Merrill 7y ago
- goatinaboat 7y agoAlmond milk, quinoa, soya... All these “lifestyle” foods turn out to have consequences. But no one who drinks it will stop because of articles like this.
- aaron695 7y agoThere is nothing coherent about the article. Ok, lets make an almond tree that doesn't need bee's. Now we'll have less bee keepers, since they will lose the work they are doing, and less bees. Tomorrows article will be about bee collapses and how that matters. Nothing in the article points to the almond process that's killing bees. It implies other activities in California are responsible perhaps we need to look there. If they are trying to make a claim a bees life matters, then why does it matter over a grasshopper that's also killed by the pesticides?
- fourthark 7y agoThey buried it Pesticides are used for all kinds of crops across the state, but the almond, at 35m lb a year, is doused with greater absolute quantities than any other. One of the most widely applied pesticides is the herbicide glyphosate (AKA Roundup), which is a staple of large-scale almond growers and has been shown to be lethal to bees as well as cause cancer in humans. (The maker, Bayer-owned Monsanto, denies the cancer link when people use Roundup at the prescribed dosage. So far this year three US courts have found in favour of glyphosate users who developed forms of lymphoma; thousands more cases are pending.) On top of the threat of pesticides, almond pollination is uniquely demanding for bees because colonies are aroused from winter dormancy about one to two months earlier than is natural. The sheer quantity of hives required far exceeds that of other crops – apples, America’s second-largest pollination crop, use only one-tenth the number of bees. And the bees are concentrated in one geographic region at the same time, exponentially increasing the risk of spreading sickness.
- pfdietz 7y agoGlyphosate has been shown to be lethal to bees? Weird, since it targets an enzyme that only appears in non-animals. Maybe they meant it's lethal to bees if you drop the bottle on one.
- fourthark 7y agoUnintended consequences can happen. Looks like it’s an active debate. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Glyphosate+bees&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Glyphosate+bees&t=fpas&ia=web
- ada1981 7y agoEasy fix is to switch to Hemp or Oat Milk. I find them more interesting and I imagine hemp milk isn’t much of an issue for bees.
- antirez 7y agoBees are not essential to the almond industry in general, but to the US almond industry in particular because US is focusing on almond varieties that are not the best nor auto-compatible (so they need bees to pollinate), but have the economic advantage of having a very good ratio between the weight of shell over the seed inside. This is good to get the maximum earning, but is bad both for human health because the thin shell allows for the almonds to be more easily contaminated, and for bees because of what the article says.
- OrgNet 7y agoin other words, CA could not have chosen a worst crop to grow (I heard that it also requires a lot of water to grow, something that CA is short on)
- antirez 7y agoOh I forgot to mention water! Actually almonds can grow almost without any water at all, this is how we do it in Sicily, but certain varieties will yield 2x product if you use water. Hence in CA usually water is used, but with systems to use as little as possible.
- Sharlin 7y agoIt makes me irrationally angry how often things could be done sustainably but of course aren’t because there’s no strong enough incentive to care about negative externalities.
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y agoCalifornia growing 80% of the worlds almond a isn’t sustainable. It used California water and it’s the depleting the nutrients in the soil.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoAnd they transport almond milk in cartons all over that is worse. The packaging and the space it takes for transport and the protocol for liquid transporting and the carbon foot print of pasteurization and so much more are entirely unnecessary because almond milk is so easy to make from a powder/almond meal. But consumers are used to pouring it from a carton. Consumer education is so essential.
- gridlockd 7y agoOf course billions of bees are dying every year, because 99.9% of bees don't live longer than six months.
- Pfhreak 7y agoI suspect that is not what this article is considering. Bees are usually able to sustain their populations, "dying" in this context implies "and not being replaced with new brood".
- gridlockd 7y ago> ..."dying" in this context implies "and not being replaced with new brood". No it doesn't. The bees that pollinate almonds are bred by beekeepers and sent out for this exact purpose. They will be replaced as long as the demand for their service remains.
- gscott 7y agoHe makes 300k pollinating the almonds and spends 100k in the upkeep of the bees. Plus makes some side money selling honey... So he is doing ok.
- Pfhreak 7y agoYeah, it does. The article is explicitly about colonies dying at an unexpectedly high rate. > By October, 150 of Arp’s hives had been wiped out by mites, 12% of his inventory in just a few months. > Commercial beekeepers who send their hives to the almond farms are seeing their bees die in record numbers, and nothing they do seems to stop the decline. > This is more than one-third of commercial US bee colonies... > In the early 1980s, when Arp was just selling honey, he would lose about 5% of his hives per year to disease or weather conditions. Around 2000, Arp’s bees started dying in greater numbers. > First, he experienced a nearly 100% loss of his hives from an infestation of tracheal mites.
- gridlockd 7y ago
- 40four 7y agoThe article fails to mention an of the viruses that are carried by the Varroa mite. The problem in not only the mites physically attacking the bees, but the proliferation of a suite of viruses they carry. One that is particularly harmful is the 'Deformed wing virus' (DWV) [0]. Luckily there are some promising developments on this front. Research efforts led by Paul Stamets [1] have developed an extract derived from mushrooms that, when fed to the bee colonies, have been shown to drastically reduce DWV and Lake Sinai virus.[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_wing_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_wing_virus [1] https://fungi.com/pages/bees https://fungi.com/pages/bees [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8
- protomyth 7y agoNorth Dakota (the top honey producing state in the USA) has a special section of its website for honey bees[1] and has a document called "NORTH DAKOTA POLLINATOR PLAN"[2] that might give some perspective from the beekeeper and state side. 1) https://www.nd.gov/ndda/plant-industries/apiary-honey-bees https://www.nd.gov/ndda/plant-industries/apiary-honey-bees 2) https://www.nd.gov/ndda/sites/default/files/legacy/resource/ND%20Pollinator%20Plan%202016.pdf https://www.nd.gov/ndda/sites/default/files/legacy/resource/...
- shanev 7y agoI hope we are learning that substituting fake things for real things often have catastrophic effects. If fake meat becomes popular, this will get much worse. Food production is complex. Substituting one thing for another may seem like a good idea on the surface, but it ignores second order effects.
- redis_mlc 7y agoWord around Cali is that almonds are basically a way to export fresh water to China in a subsidized, condensed format. Something to think about in an arid region.