CCD And World Food

[Winstonm]

I watched a Discovery Channel program the other night concerning Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, which has been killing of honeybee colonies worldwide.

 

The show stated that at the current level of collapse, the United States bee population would be eliminated completely by 2035, and that 1/3 of all the food we eat is pollinated by honeybees.

 

I then remembered seeing an article a couple months ago that said the world is consuming annually 10% more food than it is producing.

 

These seem to be some catastrophic numbers putting us on a collision course with starvation.

 

Is there any good news about food?

 

Here's a link to a PBS show on CCD: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/si...ntroduction/38/

[kenberg]

I then remembered seeing an article a couple months ago that said the world is consuming annually 10% more food than it is producing.

Did it explain how this was done? I understand, sort of, about spending money we don't have but eating a carrot that we haven't grown seems like a neat trick

[barmar]

I then remembered seeing an article a couple months ago that said the world is consuming annually 10% more food than it is producing.

Did it explain how this was done? I understand, sort of, about spending money we don't have but eating a carrot that we haven't grown seems like a neat trick

We haven't always been doing this. In the past we produced more food than we were consuming, and stored the excess for the future. Now we're depleting the reserves.

[Fluffy]

No starvation, when the food need arises, we will start a big war and when more than half the population is dead we/they will be plenty of food again.

[jjbrr]

malthus

[Al_U_Card]

Just more doom and gloom, I'm afraid.....PHOSPHATE, the inorganic fertilizer that helps provide the mega-yields that feed the world, is running out! By 2035 all of the major sources (Fla. and Marocco) will be exhausted.

 

Yields will go down and prices will go up......so Americans are getting bigger physically in a sort of psychic response to the upcoming starvation? B)

[hrothgar]

Couple quick comments

 

1. Last I heard, the cause of CCD had been identified. (Which is a good thing)

 

2. As with most any kind of complex system, linear extrapolation (there will be no honey bees in 2035) is very questionable

 

3. As incomes have increased, the amount of slack built into the food system has increased enormously. The best example is the amount of meat built into diets. Reducing the amount of meat built into diets would have an enormous impact on the number of people you can feed (and this is coming from a dedicated carnivore)

[bid_em_up]

1. Last I heard, the cause of CCD had been identified. (Which is a good thing)

It would be a good thing if it were true, but unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case. There was some speculation that Spanish scientists had identified a fungus called Nosema ceranae as the cause of CCD, and treated a couple of colonies with an antibiotic to kill the fungus, and those colonies then recovered.

 

However:

 

In May 2009, NATURE Online asked Dennis van Engelsdorp, Pennsylvania’s acting state beekeeper, to comment on recent developments in the investigation into Colony Collapse Disorder. Here’s what he had to say.

 

Q: A new study by Spanish researchers, published in the February ’09 edition of the Environmental Microbiology Reports journal, suggests that the fungus Nosema ceranae had been isolated as the cause of colony collapse in two affected beekeeper colonies in Spain. Is this fungus responsible for the Colony Collapse Disorder in the U.S.?

 

A: Absolutely not. We identified Nosema ceranae right from the beginning, and right away it was clear that Nosema ceranae could not, on its own, explain losses CCD losses in America. I don’t know about Spain, but there are [scientists and beekeepers] in Europe who have had high losses who are saying it’s not Nosema ceranae. What we do know is that the description of mortality described in these papers isn’t the same as Colony Collapse Disorder. I think what’s happening is that CCD has caught people’s attention and so now everything that is a colony dying is “Colony Collapse Disorder.” And that’s not true. Colony Collapse Disorder is a very defined set of traits: a rapid loss of the adult population and no dead bees in the bee yard or in the bee colonies, and that’s certainly not what this research described. We also know that in America, not all colonies have Nosema ceranae — colonies have a lot of viruses. So instead of having one or two viruses, they’ll have five or six viruses. We think they have something like the flu, and this flu is simply wiping through. The question is “Why suddenly are the bees so susceptible to all of these other pathogens — including Nosema ceranae but certainly not limited to Nosema ceranae.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/si...-may-2009/4991/

[Al_U_Card]

Bees got AIDS...we can only imagine about the Birds....Acute Avian Apiaritis...AAA :(

[gwnn]

We should have a poll about the most likely cause of Armageddon. I wonder who would win. Bee deaths are too dark a horse for my taste.

[blackshoe]

"Armageddon" is a place. I don't think places are caused. :(

[helene_t]

We should have a poll about the most likely cause of Armageddon. I wonder who would win. Bee deaths are too dark a horse for my taste.

I vote for downgrading of 4333-hands as the cause of the next mass extinction.

[Al_U_Card]

As long as it is the extinction of over-bidders, I'm with her! :(

[Winstonm]

Did it explain how this was done?

 

By the simple expedient of having more rainy days than sunny, I suppose. (presumably you are old enough to remember the admonition to save for a rainy day, no?)

[onoway]

re the bees: Some time ago in a discussion in Mother Earth News (I think it was) beekeepers who kept their hives in organic fields claimed they were not having the same problems with losing hives as those who had their bees in fields consistently sprayed with an assortment of poisons. It would make some sort of sense since many of these sprays are also toxic to people who are exposed to them and come with all sorts of precautions for handling. Roundup is an example of a product advertised as safe and inert when it hit the ground, but a study done in Ontario by a British research group showed the product's active ingredients, especially when used in conjunction with each other, are anything but safe OR inert at any point.

 

The organic beekeepers in the discussion also said that nobody was listening.

 

I thought that the unexplained disappearance of frogs in various areas was supposed to be the " canary in the mine"? Animal Planet in BBO forums lol