Bees are being used for crops argument

[Lou]

Speaking of Bees.
Today's NYT

The Beekeepers Who Don’t Want You to Buy More Bees

In Slovenia and around the world, conservationists try — and mostly fail — to combat the widespread belief that honey bees are in danger.

www.nytimes.com

 

[jaylen1996]

Honey bees are not in peril. These bees are.

Want to save the bees? First, throw out most of what you know about them.

www.vox.com

There is a good companion video for this
Search for Vox AND What we get wrong about saving the bees

This article was amazing. Thank you. If we can reduce farmland and let nature comeback wild bee's can return more

 

[Col]

Vegans are blamed for farming practices that arent theirs. There are veganic farming methods but farmers who sell plant based foods aren't vegan so don't care about wild life etc and will use cruel methods.

I agree there are veganinc farming methods that will be used more as more farmers become vegan.
I see the issues of planting monoculture - but vegetable farmers are not the only planters of mono culture, where I live most farmland is acres of grasslands to feed animals for slaughter or dairy cheaply - this is green desert with regard to wildlife

 

[Graeme M]

I agree there are veganinc farming methods that will be used more as more farmers become vegan.
I see the issues of planting monoculture - but vegetable farmers are not the only planters of mono culture, where I live most farmland is acres of grasslands to feed animals for slaughter or dairy cheaply - this is green desert with regard to wildlife

Are "veganic" farming methods possible for broadacre farming? I don't think that were we to replace animals as food we would need to grow more fruit and vegetables. Mainly we'd need high-protein volume foods like soy, pulses, maybe wheat. Those are what people refer to when they talk about monoculture farming.

By the way, I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I don't think those sorts of crops require honeybees for pollination. Most are wind-borne pollinators. Also, pests are a big problem with those kinds of crops, especially mice in wheat here in Australia. The bigger concern might turn out to be pest control, not so much pollination.

 

[Col]

Are "veganic" farming methods possible for broadacre farming? I don't think that were we to replace animals as food we would need to grow more fruit and vegetables. Mainly we'd need high-protein volume foods like soy, pulses, maybe wheat. Those are what people refer to when they talk about monoculture farming.

By the way, I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I don't think those sorts of crops require honeybees for pollination. Most are wind-borne pollinators. Also, pests are a big problem with those kinds of crops, especially mice in wheat here in Australia. The bigger concern might turn out to be pest control, not so much pollination.

Veganic does not mean broadacre as there would be areas or reserves for local wildlife to live and feed themselves freely, planted sympathetically with local wild plants, flowers and trees.
It does mean that human food crops would be harvested with respect to the lives of local wildlife as much as is practically possible, for example in the design of any machinery used to harvest that would not be killing wildlife as much as possible.

 

[Lou]

I think in any discussion of ethical sustainable farming one needs to assume a vegan human population.

Although I admit it is debatable but I'm convinced that in order to feed a vegan population would require much Less land than we presently use for agriculture. After that everything else seems to flow naturally. For instance once we aren't growing corn for cattle feed the need for monoculture is diminished. Once there is less monoculture the need to rely on imported honeybees is reduced too.

 

[Graeme M]

I think in any discussion of ethical sustainable farming one needs to assume a vegan human population.

Although I admit it is debatable but I'm convinced that in order to feed a vegan population would require much Less land than we presently use for agriculture. After that everything else seems to flow naturally. For instance once we aren't growing corn for cattle feed the need for monoculture is diminished. Once there is less monoculture the need to rely on imported honeybees is reduced too.

That's a good point about assuming the world would be vegan. But I'm not sure why that would affect the demand for cropland or monocultures? We talked about this earlier in the thread and I suppose I'm still not clear why you think the need for monocultures becomes less in a vegan world. We'd use a lot less land for agriculture because we wouldn't be grazing cattle, but arable land would still be needed. Most estimates suggest around 1 billion hectares for food, which as best I can tell is a simple linear calculation based on calories needed divided by calorie yields from harvests.

But that doesn't include losses which currently are mitigated by the feed market, so I really think we'd need about 20-30% additional area to cover that. Then we have permanent crops, usually about 200 million hectares (eg tobacco, rubber, cotton). And finally, all the crops needed to replace pet food and the many other things we get from animals (eg wool and leather).

Just working out how much food we need directly isn't the whole story. Every time I have worked this out, I get about 1.4-1.6 billion hectares. About the same as now. And that will increase by about 10% by 2050 to allow for population growth.

But like I said just above, most monocultures don't need pollination, so I don't think the problem of bees being harmed gets worse in a vegan world. And I guess overall, neither will pest control. Plus, being a vegan world, you'd imagine we'd try to do that a whole lot better.