Posted on 01/17/2020 2:13:54 PM PST by nickcarraway
In the past five years, almond milk consumption in the United States has exploded over 250 percent. The lower-calorie, vegan milk alternative is a staple in grocery stores and coffee shops across the country now, but its booming popularity comes at a heavy environmental cost. According to a new report from the Guardian this week, the titanic and growing demands of the California almond industry are placing a huge strain on the hives of bees used to pollinate their orchards, wiping out billions of honeybees in a matter of months.
My yard is currently filled with stacks of empty bee boxes that used to contain healthy hives, Dennis Arp, a commercial beekeeper, told the Guardian. Like many of his peers, nearly half of Arps income comes from renting out his hives to pollinate almonds. But now, he says, he loses 30 percent or more of his bees a year, a number thats on par for many beekeepers in the U.S. One survey of commercial beekeepers found that 50 billion honeybees were wiped out in just a few months during the winter of 201819.
The high mortality rate among bees who pollinate almonds, beekeepers believe, is due in part to the enormous quantities of pesticides used on almonds far more than any other crop in California, whose Central Valley region is responsible for more than 80 percent of the worlds almond supply. Whats more, almond pollination is especially demanding for bees, because they need to wake up from their annual period of winter dormancy one to two months earlier than usual to begin. Then, once they start, massive numbers of bees are concentrated in small geographic areas, making it easier for diseases to spread among them.
As Patrick Pynes, an organic beekeeper who teaches environmental studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, told the Guardian, The bees in the almond groves are being exploited and disrespected. They are in severe decline because our human relationship to them has become so destructive.
In order to improve the pollination process, groups have launched programs to help protect bees and signal to consumers which products have been made with bee-friendly methods. The nonprofit Bee Better, for instance, partners with almond growers to increase biodiversity for bees in their groves by planting wildflowers, mustard, and clover between the rows of almond trees.
Still, even the most bee-friendly almond groves have a heavy environmental footprint. Almonds are an especially thirsty crop. As Mother Jones reported back in 2014, it takes a gallon of water to produce a single almond, an astounding demand in a regularly drought-stricken state.
Maybe try out oat milk for a while instead?
I've been wondering the same. The only answer I can come up with is that bees have a nut allergy or insecticide allergy.
Almond milk must be ruining someone's business.
Oh, and about the water issue... Which needs more water? almonds or pot plants?
NOT the Babylon Bee?
AGRICULTURE IS JUST NOT THAT IMPORTANT TO THE US ECONOMY. THIS IS FACT.
I am a hobbyist beekeeper. I run 10-20 hives at a time. It is true that varroa mites are responsible for much of the colony loss we have experienced in the U.S. Beekeepers are pursuing various means of addressing this problem, from monthly fogging of hives with oxalic acid vapor to breeding queens who pass on traits of attacking the mites and biting off their legs. (ankle biters, they are called :-)
I don’t move my bees more than 3 miles between a relative’s and my property so I have no experience in monoculture use of hives.
That being said, if growers are using pesticides then it can’t help but affect the honeybees. I’ve had die off from mosquito spraying 1/2 mile from my bee yard, even thought the county is supposed to notify me before spraying so I can close up my hives for a day or so.
I know another lady beekeeper (big operation unlike me) who was almost wiped out because she agreed to place her hives on a farm where the farmer promised no pesticides and used them anyway.
We could import ALL of our raw food products a MAKE everything here and we’d be MUCH better off economy. Agriculture is the ghetto economy.
Oxygen makes up less than 1% of our body weight. Therefore, it’s not that important.
Chocolate dairy milk is 200 calories!!! Almond chocolate mild taste BETTER and sweetened with splenda is only 1/5 the calories.
How the hell can you put a strain on bees because there are too many almond trees (huh, rhymes). Are there overseers bees that whip their slaves bees into pollinating more and more, working longer hours without breaks.
This is the most idiotic statement so I must conclude the author is a Democrat. Therefore he is a liar and has another hidden agenda.
I can just hear the bees after the sun goes down complaining and fretting over the number of blooms that they have to extract nectar from.
It’s “trans” milk — fake milk.
Face it, the GOP is kowtowing to an industry that is insignificant. Farmers are spoiled babies but have disproportionate political power. Labor and workers in general are political orphans. At some point one of the two political parties are going to figure that out.
Sorry, let me fix that, “Almond chocolate milk tastes BETTER”
I like almond milk even better now, though I just had it for the first time today.
Cows produce a lot of good stuff. But they can’t spell worth a darn.
honey bees are not native to north america.... I myself have bees. One can’t speak of hive collapse and the effects of almost anything on the bee colonies without also talking about the desire by bee keepers for more docile insects. More aggressive and resilient bees have been bred out everywhere just to make the bee keepers job simpler.
Lol! Good point!
I will admit, almond milk makes good smoothies.
Who cares if the farmers all go broke? I get my food at the grocery store!
Blended with chocolate soy powder....stevia and canned pumpkin it’s so delish.....
A2 Milk
Fixed it.
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