The Stability Of U.S. Food Supply In Danger

D. S. Mitchell

In a 12 month period from April 2014-2015 the honey bee colonies in the United States decreased by more than 40%, the highest annual loss ever recorded. The massive losses compelled researchers to coin a new term to describe the problem. They named the massive losses as “colony collapse disorder.”

With over 40% of U.S. honeybee hives now dying each year it is important to note that 40% of invertebrate pollinator species according to a recent UN sponsored report face extinction. Bees and butterflies are now approaching the brink.If you add that, “one of every three bites of food that you and I eat is pollinated by bees and other pollinators,” warns Friends of Earth, an environmental action group struggling to save the bees, the calamity of the situation is front and center. Seeing the bee die-off as part of a larger insect decline cannot be overstated. A group of UK scientists are calling it an “ecological Armageddon.”

Do the math, it doesn’t require a genius IQ to see the threat. Earthjustice a legal fund fighting for bee protection, believes that, “Bees are the canaries in the coal mine, warning us of an imminent and frightening threat to our food.” Our time is limited if we are going to save the bees and ourselves.

The stability of the U.S.food supply is facing imminent threat.

As previously noted, Honey bees, vital pollinators of more than one-third of our nation’s crops, including “super foods” such as berries, nuts and avocados are dying in record numbers. The rapid loss of honey bees threatens to unravel agricultural production all across the country.

What was a battle between big business and the environmental community within the state and federal court system has intensified since the election of Donald Trump. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress and his cronies in the corporate sector intend to dismantle long-established safeguards created to protect food safety, farm workers and the overall public health.

Today, with possibly the most anti-environmental administration and Congress in history we are facing a difficult challenge to enact regulations surrounding toxic chemicals and pesticides needed to protect the pollinators, and human beings.  I am hoping for a Democratic tsunami for 2018, otherwise I have little hope for the survival of the bees, or the nation’s safe food supply.

The fight for the future of the honey bees–America’s greatest pollinator–and for the future of our nation’s food security and public health in general is a fight we cannot lose. Honey bees are the unsung heroes of American agricultural productivity, working diligently to pollinate no less than 1/3 of U.S. agricultural crops. It is time that we recognize their hard work and make it our mission to insure their safety and recovery.

Scientists world-wide after analyzing more that 800 environmental studies determined that the major cause of the bee die offs can be directly attributed to a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or “neonics” for short. These chemicals in even microscopic doses can harm a bee.

Repeated exposure to neonic pesticides start to change a bee’s life and later the entire hive. Science has tracked a number of different outcomes after exposure. 1.) Illness and Death: Neonics make it hard for bees to groom themselves, making them susceptible to disease and mites, and weakening their immune systems. 2.) Colony Contamination:If a bee is able to return to the hive, they return covered in contaminated pollen. As other bees store the pollen, they all become contaminated 3.) Lost and confused: Neonics affect bees’ ability to navigate back to their hives. Unable to find their way home, they die. Worker bees supply the colony’s food. When they are lost and don’t return, the entire colony can die from starvation.

These “neonics” are systemic chemicals. That means that the pesticide is absorbed into every part of the plant. As a result, it not only kills insects that come into direct contact with its droplets, but renders the entire plant–flowers, nectar, and pollen–highly toxic for weeks, or even months after application.

Neonics are approved for use on the majority of crops in the United States. The bee die off has spiked and has so disturbed scientists that the US Dept of Agriculture issued the following statement:

“Currently, the survivorship of honey bee colonies is too low for us to be confident in our ability to meet the pollination demands of US agricultural crops.”

Although bans in other countries have been successful–Italy went from losing 37.5% of its hives in 2008 to only 15% after restricting neonics–the US has been frighteningly slow to act. And, with an EPA administration and Congress stocked with Trump’s corporate cronies, it is even less likely that our government will act to regulate bee-killing pesticides.

Honey bees may be small, but they play a huge role in making food available for our tables. Bees have an electromagnetic charge that turns them into flying magnets, carrying and transferring pollen from flower to flower. It takes 60,000 bees, about two hives, to pollinate just one acre of orchard. Each spring across the United States honey bees pollinate almonds, apples, oranges, apricots, lemons, squash, zucchini and dozens of other fruits and vegetables a truly amazing accomplishment.

Whole Foods working with Time magazine showed that honey bees are of vital importance to the nation’s food security by dramatically removing all the produce that depends on bee pollination from their produce shelves for a photo-op to dramatize the impending loss. Of the about 450 items usually found in the average American supermarket half will disappear if America’s crops don’t get pollinated. That realization is a serious threat to the nation’s ability to produce food, as well as to our food security. This is really scary stuff.

The largest producers of these pesticides are Bayer, Dow, Monsanto and Syngenta, whose own studies–obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request–show that neonics cause significant harm to bees and other pollinators. A study commissioned by The European Food Safety Authority indicated that the same class of pesticides killing the pollinators “may affect the developing nervous system of children.” If you weren’t scared before, this should light your hair on fire.

There are more than 500 neonic products on the market. I don’t expect the Trump administration to take any action that will help native bees, bumblebees, butterflies or other pollinators, like the nearly extinct rusty patched bumblebee, which was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act last year.

As the fight to save the bees intensifies another neurotoxic insecticide is coming under scrutiny. Chlorpyrifos, commonly used in agriculture has been shown in EPA studies to lower children’s IQ’s and is “likely to adversely affect” over 1700 plants and animals, many of them critically endangered, including bees.

Because of such scientific studies, chlorpyrifos were banned for home use in 2001, and in 2015 the Obama administration recommended revoking its use in agriculture. As soon as Scott Pruitt took charge of the EPA, he announced he would reverse the Obama-era ban.

The fight to save the bees is becoming more urgent by the day. Remember, bees and other pollinators are critical in growing 2/3rd of our global food crops.  From nuts, soybeans, squash and cucumbers, to apples, oranges, avocados and melons, pollinators play a critical role in producing the food we eat. Bees are the tiny forces behind more than $20 billion worth of U.S. crops each year.

Five Ways To Help Save The Bees and other pollinators:

BEE SAFE: Plant flowers such as Aster, Black-eyed Susan, Oregon Grape, Snowberry, Wild Lilac, Huckleberry, and Lupine in your garden using only organic starts or untreated seeds to provide good food and a safe haven for bees. **(One study found many of the so-called “bee friendly” plants in garden centers have been pre-treated with neonics, at levels that can harm or kill bees. Please only buy certified organic plants and reject garden products laced with bee killing pesticides.)

BEE AWARE: Use alternative pest control methods, like landscaping to attract beneficial insects, and use only eco-friendly pest-control products.

BEE VIGILANT: Read labels and steer clear of products containing neonicatinoids or chlorpyrifos. **(A list of the common brands containing neonics can be found at the end of this article.)

BEE VOCAL: Tell you friends and family about the importance of bees and how they can help save these invaluable insects.

BEE ACTIVIST: Write your legislators, state and federal. Write the EPA. Sign Petitions demanding protection for the pollinators. Ask your grocer to stop carrying products containing neonicolinoids and chlopyrifos. Protest.

BEE GENEROUS: The cost of fighting the assault on bees and our food supply is expensive. Donate to organizations like Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice to be our voice in the courtroom.

This is going to be an uphill battle for the next three years of Trumpism, but we can’t stand by and let Donald Trump think for one minute that we as a people will stand by and let him get away with destroying the environment all in the name of corporate greed.

In 1962 Rachel Carson wrote a meticulously researched book, “The Silent Spring” in which she described how, the now banned pesticide DDT, entered the food chain and accumulated in fatty tissues of animals and humans. She took on the chemical industry and her work led to DDT being banned. Her work has been credited with starting the environmental movement. We need to understand that each of us can make a difference in this world, but it requires action. It is up to us to stop the second “silent spring.”

I challenge you to make a copy of this list of killers and put it in your wallet, or your purse and use it to say “no”  to products laced with Acetamiprid, Clothianidin, Dinotefuran, Imidacloprid, Thiamethoxam all of which are toxins killing bees. If you see any of these ingredients listed on products in your home or on your local vendor’s shelves do not use them.

It seems nearly impossible to imagine but neonics hide everywhere including in these popular brands: Aloft, Arena, Allectus, Atera, Bithor, Caravan, Coretect, Derby, Dino, Dominion, Equil Adonis, Flagship, Flower (Rose & Shrub Care), Gaucho, Grub-No-More, Grubout, Hawk, Imaxxpro, Ima-Jet, Imi Insecticide, Imicide, Imid-Bifen, Imida-Teb Garden SC, Imidapro, Imigold, Lada, Malice, Mallet, Mantra, Marathon, Meridian, Merit, Nuprid, Optigard Flex, Pasada, Pointer Insecticide, Premise, Pronto, Prothor, Safari, Sagacity, Sparkle:Bounty, Tandem, Temprid, Triple Crown Insecticide, Tristar, Turfthor, Xytect.

Calamity Politics is an on-line political news magazine dedicated to protecting the environment and removing Donald Trump from the presidency of the United States. Join us for comment and opinion. Join the Resistance. We are Indivisible.

Dar