Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply | Hacker News Reader

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

nytimes.com

136 pointsjonastern63 comments

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 action.

There's a lot of money in agriculture. Increased demand of food due to exponential growth of the population. Increased demand for luxurious food like meat due to exponential economic growth of the population.

Long term, it is the most economically sustainable business from the perspective of the business owner.

Long term, it is the largest polluter of all, and is unsustainable in its core. The reason why pollinating species are disappearing is the unsustainable nature of animal husbandry and agriculture. To meet the demand you have to pesticide-the-crap out of your grain fields, and there's a lot of grain fields for your animals. Not much for humans.

> Long term, it is the most economically sustainable business from the perspective of the business owner

That's true, but not for the reasons stated. Once the population bubble bursts, the majority of human beings will become farmers if they want to survive. The negative stigma associated with farming for a living will quickly evaporate.

Some farmers say it's possible to run holistically managed farms that produce the same or higher yields than industrial farms if run properly. The issue is changing policy and subsidies to make this a reality. As a side effect we'll get more grass cover which sequesters carbon and healthier meat with more omega 3.

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 high compared to the actual effect it has on us. The pressure of green agenda is increasing all over the western world, and I'm sure that in 20 years we will look back to those days with discuss.

The only problem is if that's going to be too late or not.

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.

That actually reinforced my point: the green movement in the western world is disproportionally strong compared to the actual consequences perceived today, and the expected consequences from the optimistic projections people believe in.

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.

Losing the pollinators is part of an unravelling ecosystem. If you think you're safe in your bubble, you won't be.

Okay in the sense that we won't immediately die because we can make up for it (although it won't be nearly as good). Losing honeybees is still easily one of the most pressing issues.

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.

The cynic in me wonders why the cynic in you seems to think public opinion has any sort of influence on government policies.

Remember how massive protests and objections prevented war on Iraq? Yeah, me neither.

> 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.

From http://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-develo... : For the 70 percent of the world's poor who live in rural areas, agriculture is the main source of income and employment.

It would make more sense to me to say:

"The purpose of the economy is to grow food sustainably."

Then it would it say:

"The purpose of sustainable agriculture is to support the economy"

The economy is a tool we use to manipulate our own behavior. The idea that it's a goal in and of itself is pretty confusing to me.

> 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 is one that encourages autonomy. that means the community is self-reliant to grow it's own food, instead of depending on another entity to supply food.

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.

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

Me too. And if that's true, why do we have to worry about the end of food because of bees?

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...

Sorry, perfectly competitive is the phrase I'm looking for.

I don't think that's correct either. Many of the crops grown in the american west wouldn't be profitable if it weren't for huge subsidies. In the most egregious cases Californian farmers have grown thirsty, low value crops while their counterparts in the Southeast were being paid to destroy them.

https://mises.org/library/water-subsidies-and-shortages-amer...

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.

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.

No, what we need is a decentralized food system. You really should be eating food indigenous to the region in which you live.

In this context, it's more a jobs thing, the basic foods which supply the calories which keep us from starving to death don't require pollinators, or at least bees. As I recall, going down the list, onions were the only one I'd really miss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated...

Note also that in the US honeybees are an invasive/cultivated species brought over from Europe, their travails are akin to those of, say, the turkeys and chickens that have been suffering from/culled due to avian flu last year.

What? You don't think this is an issue because your McDonald's diet doesn't require fruits and vegetables? You need more than calories but also a thing called nutrients. That's your standard for a quality life? Well, I am not staving to death...

Without looking for veggies that don't need pollinators, in a pinch, sprout your grain, although that won't take care of your Vitamin C requirement. Better, as some POWs held by the Japanese in WWII did, use a bacteria or mold to convert the starch to sugar, then culture yeast in that. By the end of the war, they were healthier than their guards.

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.

The US produces enough grain to feed the world -- as does Russia. Starvation is a function of government policy. See Somalia and the warlord-grain thefts in the early 1990s.

> Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have a large demand though.

I'm maybe just repeating what the parent comment said, but that seems backwards to me.

If we treat agriculture's purpose as economy for economy's sake, which we have been doing, it seems counter-productive to our goals of staying alive sustainably.

This really should be no surprise. Mainstream economics practices that the environment is a subset of the economy and not the other way around.

"Sure, I can live without fresh water and clean air, but a market? I need a market." /s

If you lack fresh water and clean air, there would be a market for fresh water and clean air. :-)

Jobs haven't been a motivator for the farm economy for a couple of centuries. In 200 years, we've gone from farms employing over 95% to farms employing less than 3% of the population. In the past 50 years alone, farming improvements have supported a global doubling of the population while simultaneously cutting food costs drastically for nearly everyone.

If ever there was a triumph of modern technology, it's been the past 200 years of farming.

The problem is that stupid businessman just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that the environment might just be important. The only language they understand is money. Gonna be the death of us all. Idiots.

According to historian Dr. Joseph Tainter's book 'The Collapse of Complex Societies', if you exclude isolated groups such as tribes, there have been 23 distinct civilizations throughout the course of human history and 22 have failed. Hypercomplexity and specialization tend to be common characteristics, as well as, misuse of resources.

People ask for meat, businessmans provide agriculture for the animals and the animals, why is only the businessman responsible? most of the agricultural land is not used for direct human consumption, humans need to stop being ignorant and start to change their habits.

There is a startup in my country which tries to help the situation.

http://www.beesmarttechnologies.com/

"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.

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

That's interesting, I didn't know.

Honest question though: Is this relevant to my argument?

I think so, the lack of pollinators won't curtail aggressive practices associated with those crops.

Seems like basic economics would still make things work out in the end, at least on a macro level.

Most crops don't need pollinators. Corn uses wind, and wheat and soybeans self pollinate. The farms that do rely on pollinators are careful not to spray too much.

Aha. So the answer is probably, somewhat ironically, what the part of America that grows the most of these things hates the most: Increased federal regulations. :)

Once the availability of food declines people will decide to do something about it. The only question is is it then too late? Or is it to late for some and not others?

Things are always done at the last minute... We Humans as a group seam to only respond to people dying in huge numbers.

Just look at all other cases of man made disasters all were known to be around long before it happened and nothing was done to prevent them.

>Just look at all other cases of man made disasters all were known to be around long before it happened and nothing was done to prevent them.

This ignores the would-be disasters that were prevented.now i don't know any of the top of my head and i imagine that they would be hard to find as they would get less press.

We'll pollinate by hand:

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5193-De...

Is there where robotics can truly saves us, with honey bee micro-drones instead of autonomous vacuums and servants?

--UPDATE-- Thanks, Harvard! Now, new research on robotic honey is needed...

https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/05/robotic-insects-ma...

I've read a few things about this issue and I'm not entirely sure how I feel. There are a lot of alarmist comments and articles, and people who don't understand what is going on because of them. This is going to be a stream of my thoughts and things I've learned, not really arguing for any "side".

The main problem seems to be with honey bees, and in North America. Honey bees are not native, or wild. I believe they are somewhat inbred or at least have a founder effect. And they are transported around the country every year by farmers, spreading whatever pathogens they have to every colony rapidly.

We also steal their honey (and breed them to over produce it in the first place). And in some cases replace it with shitty substitutes like corn syrup. But I'm not a beekeeper and I'm sure they know what they are doing, but still. It's not a very natural environment for the bees.

There are native species of bees. E.g. bumblebees. I do not know whether or not they are declining. I found a single study about their long term population. Some species are declining, but others are not. I am very confused about this result and don't know what to make of it. These bees have an advantage being native to this environment, having more genetic diversity, and not being vulnerable to the same pathogens.

It's not clear if native bees would be able to take over for industrial agriculture, which is optimized around honey bees.

The actual number of honey bee colonies in the US has not declined, despite these issues. However this may be due to intensive efforts by farmers to keep them alive, and operating at a loss. It might not be sustainable.

It's not clear if insecticides are really to blame. Since the insecticides in question have been around for a long time before this was an issue. It's likely a contributing factor though.

Mostly this affects the fruit industry. Most staple crops, or at least grains, do not require insect pollination. Humanity is not at any risk of starving to death, even in the worst case scenario.

Honey bees are actually super inefficient. In a farm in China, they died off, so they had to pay humans to pollinate all the trees manually. Production increased by 30%, since the bees missed a lot of flowers. While paying humans is a bit expensive, it's possible technology could replace the need for honey bees and improve agriculture.

On that note, we could also replace insecticides with better technology. E.g. insect zapping lasers, or robots that seek them out. Chemical pesticides are really really awesome, contrary to popular belief. But they do seem crude to me.

And GM crops have literally nothing to do with any of this. As far as I can tell. Glyphosate is a herbicide, not an insecticide.

The glass bees...

If the cause is the use of gm crops and fertilizer it will be just a hand full companies that managed to wipe our food supply for profit. I find that quite amazing.

Fear not, along with Roundup and Roundup-ready crops you will also get Roundup-ready beneficial bugs and pollinators.

You know Roundup (glyphosate) is a herbicide, right? So that's a non-issue.

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.

That's a lot of conspiracy theory in one sentence. I'd be disappointed if the WHO ran after every breath of witchcraft published in somebody's blog.

I meant news stories from real rather reputable newspapers, not from random blogs. Call it what you want. We just need objective independent research about that topic, opinionated one won't help general public nor the bees and other declining species.

Do you have any examples of those news stories?

Genuinely interested, so if you do have any links it would be great.

Maybe our taxonomy is wrong.. Maybe these insects should be considered part of the "plant kingdom" ?

Given that [certain] plants cannot survive without (these) insects, it results that (these) insects are an essential part of [those] plants.

Or, more grossly, (these) insects are actually part of the plant organisms. For the plants they are a form of detachable reproduction organs.

The other way around:

Bees have external "organs" - the plant part. The bees are part "animals", part plants - they need the plant "organ" for nourishment and they choose who the plant will mate with.

This way of looking at animals/plants has certain implications:

We can't just look at a peach garden without also considering the bees and other insects required for the garden's long term survival. Why stop at bees ? What about all the other insects/animals who depend on these "unified" organisms ? Are they also part of some sort of larger "organism" ?

---

See, the reason it is very difficult to address many of the complex problems that we have in the world today is because we use these taxonomy systems (in programming terms - "class hierarchies") - they define and limit our ability to grasp the complexity of the full system.

And somehow, we maintain these taxonomy systems without refactoring them, even though our understanding of nature has grown considerably after these systems of categorization have been introduced many years ago.

Just like a well designed class hierarchy leads to a clean and efficient application, so should the way we categorize things and beings in nature determine the overall health of the whole system.

It is rarely possible to come up with the perfect class hierarchy from the very beginning, since the problem is rarely clearly defined and changes over time, so we refactor.

We need to keep our class hierarchies in sync with the objective reality and the same should be done to taxonomy systems, otherwise "reality" doesn't quite fit in our neatly defined boxes of boxes of boxes of things, like Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, etc

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