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Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

nytimes.com

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Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#21

Post by Joof »

moonshinefe wrote: post #3

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 actio…

Maybe, but losing pollinators probably means the loss of thousands of plant species.

Wealthy countries who have industrial agriculture will be fine (although arguably the world will be poorer for the loss), but poor countries will be 100% fucked if they lose their pollinators.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#22

Post by nommm-nommm »

adwn wrote: post #2

> 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.

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.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#23

Post by fweespeech »

moonshinefe wrote: post #3

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 actio…

Well, to be fair, the loss of pollinators isn't impossible to recover from as a substantial number of plants are hand pollinated already because its more reliable than nature in some situations.

It is more likely food will increase in cost and everyone outside of the 1st world will be under substantial strain because of it.

Unfortunately, Capitalism has shown consistently it is incapable of handling externalities like pollution, mishandled pesticides, etc.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#24

Post by pjc50 »

pyre wrote: post #15
electricblue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't supply. We have more than enough supply as you said. The problem is transportation. There just isn't a technology that's cheap and light enough to make shipping food to the food poor countries around the world profitable. If there was somebody would be doing it. Instead they rely on charity and subsistence farming

Most of the "we must destroy this food" stuff happens to control the pricing of food. If it's getting too cheap, they need to restrict supply so they start destroying otherwise good food.

This isn't as big an issue as it used to be in the bad old days of EU production subsidy. Most of the modern food waste is along the production and distribution chain, especially in stores when food has passed its use-by date.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#25

Post by Retric »

electricblue wrote: post #14
briantakita wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared with the agricultural system's main task – keeping us from starving to death the agricultural system's main task is to make money & control others through the market. if it's main goal was to feed the world, we would have succeeded long ago. just look at all of the food thrown away (more than enough to feed those who don't have food) & subsidies to grow ethanol, instead of food. the best agricultural model…

The problem isn't supply. We have more than enough supply as you said. The problem is transportation. There just isn't a technology that's cheap and light enough to make shipping food to the food poor countries around the world profitable. If there was somebody would be doing it. Instead they rely on charity and subsistence farming

That’s not really it. Poor countries have a mix of rich, middle class, and poor. Its poor people in poor countries that can’t afford to pay for food as their jobs are destroyed by importing food.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#26

Post by marcosdumay »

gutnor wrote: post #6
moonshinefe wrote: post #3

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 actio…

Most of the western nations are nicely isolated from the consequences of climate and environmental changes. If you look at the map of the region that are expected to suffer from the consequences of Global Warming, you will notice that the western world, again, is a lot safer. I used to be a lot more cynic before, but in practice, the level of awareness and empathy for climate and environmental issues is surprisingly…

What maps are those? And they include things like bee species extinction?

I've seen some people claiming that global warming will make the extreme North have a flourishing agriculture revolution, with enough productivity to compensate the loss of the tropical regions. Those people ignore both how to read a map, and that plants need sunlight to grow. Also, they ignore every single consequence that isn't plain linear, globally constant warming. To be short, they are a joke. I hope you are not talking about those.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#27

Post by pault »

Joof wrote: post #20
Clanan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a citation? That's a strong claim, and I would like to read more about it.

Its common knowledge IMO, but you can certainly Google it. Agriculture is a near-perfect free market, so organizations and governments often destroy crops to raise prices.

How does government interference in a market make it near-perfectly free? The U.S. agriculture market is infamous as a source of government waste and pork barrel spending:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21643191-crop-pr...

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#28

Post by 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.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#29

Post by 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.

Re: Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply

#30

Post by maxerickson »

johansch wrote: post #28

"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…

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