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?
LOL
The problem is the heartless bee owners working them to death. /s
Well, central_va, I for one intend to keep eating. I kinda think that is pretty important.
Well, other than food security and contamination control, you are quite correct.
Let’s just ignore the need for local fresh food and live on pills like the Jetsons!
You can’t eat paper, FRiend.
Of course bees due by the billions. That’s because they’re born by the billions. A queen lays a thousand eggs a day and the average life span is about 30 days. Except for the queen. She lives for about 5 years.
yep there is no need for agriculture since we can get all the food we need from the local grocery stores or amazon.
Bees seldom fly high enough to encounter the blades.
I would prefer cows milk, however I simply cannot keep it fresh for a reasonable period in my refrigerator, although I have the temperature set as low as I can without freezing it.
So I have switched to soy milk. I like to blend it with protein power and blueberries or raspberries. Yummy!
Almond flour is cutting into the wheat and grain industry.
People are wising up to the USDA food pyramid as being a big lie sponsored by the wheat and grain industry.
Read “Grain Brain” and “Wheat Belly” for the shocking details.
If we can import all consumer electronics then why not import our raw agricultural products? I am told by Wall Street we are nation of consumers ( like insects ) and everything is a commodity right? Why be so emotional and sentimental about farming? Argentinian beef, Canadian wheat and Ukrainian corn tastes just like ours.
Argentinian beef, Canadian wheat and Ukrainian corn tastes just like ours.
I've drank/drunk two glasses of cows milk a day almost my entire life. At 76, I'm as healthy as a horse.
I did joke to my doctor once that I get more antibiotics from the grocery store than from him.
(He was surprised that I knew that 80% of antibiotics are consumed by animals.)
Argentinian beef, Canadian wheat and Ukrainian corn tastes just like ours.
Invent a natural, non-technical, non-benzene pesticide...why is that so hard?
Oh, I forgot about the congressman lining pockets from the companies who make the pesticides...campaign donations...expose them and problem gets solved.
Follow the money.
The highest grade any liberal can get on any science paper is a D+.
This one gets a D-
I like the 30 cal in my coffee and cereal. If I want just a glass of milk, I'll drink non-fat milk, it's only 80 cal and I prefer the flavor over the almond milk.
No matter what you do these people will say it’s bad. Switch to coconut milk and they’ll say its evil too.
They ARE evil.
If we need to make our own steel for the sake of national security we also need to produce food for the same reason.
They say that society is 3 meals away from anarchy.
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