A recent story in the Guardian titled “The Age of Extinction: Bees; ‘Like Sending Bees to War’: the Deadly Truth Behind Your Almond Milk Obsession,” alleges that almond growers are somehow uniquely responsible for substantial losses of honeybee hives, and that may eventually lead to their extinction. The article gets a large number of facts wrong, but the story really isn’t about almond farms or even honeybees. It’s about the author’s wrongheaded belief that high-yield farming is bad for the environment. Ironically, the author’s implied “solution” would actually wreak havoc on the environment.
The Guardian article contains so many scientifically faulty claims that one could write a book debunking each one, but in this post we will address the bigger point as detailed in this excerpt:
Beekeepers attributed the high mortality rate to pesticide exposure, diseases from parasites and habitat loss. However, environmentalists and organic beekeepers maintain that the real culprit is something more systemic: America’s reliance on industrial agriculture methods, especially those used by the almond industry, which demands a large-scale mechanization of one of nature’s most delicate natural processes. … Environmentalists argue a better solution is to transform the way large-scale agriculture is carried out in the U.S.The author seems to believe that modern, high-yield farming—which uses technologies that range from agrochemicals to tractors to genetic modification—threatens the existence of wildlife, and in this case, honeybees. The author blames almonds in this piece, but tomorrow it will be something else. Indeed, if people stopped eating almonds, high-yield farming would continue because farmers need technologies to ensure they can produce enough food to feed the world.........To Read More...
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