This reminds me that figs are extremely controversial in the vegan community for this exact reason. To me it seems a little silly given the inevitable consumption of insects in food, but to each their own I guess.
As others have stated, the common fig does not require a wasp for pollination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig#Habitat.
In my opinion, in order for this to actually be a controversial topic amongst vegans, the following would need to be true:
1. The variety of fig that you're most likely to eat would require wasps to pollinate them. 2. Fig farmers would need to directly breed, control, or otherwise manipulate/exploit fig wasps in order to ensure that their trees would be pollinated.
My research tells me that neither of these are true.
Food grown using manure is much less vegan and even that isn't widely discussed in the vegan community.
A Jain may choose not eat a fig under different ethical judgements than other vegans.
It's actually quite a striking example of coevolution. There are hundreds (855 according to the Catalog of Life) of different species of figs and almost just as many corresponding species of fig wasps for each species.
Makes me wonder if we should think of the fig wasp more like an organ of the fig than a separate individual. Just like we do with mitochondria which at some point were a separate living organism and still maintains a separate set of DNA
Are figs like other fruits in that a flower is pollinated and then the fruit grows out of it?
I bought a house 2 years ago and have a fig tree in the back yard. The first summer, the tree produced only about a dozen or two figs, but I never got any as they disappeared as soon as they started turning color (wildlife). This summer, the tree produced nearly 100 little figs but none of them ever matured/ripened and none were taken by wildlife. I didn't notice that many bees/wasps in the area of that tree (though all the other fruiting plants in my yard did extremely well - and I got to eat almost 1/3 of it!).
I'm just wondering if the tree produces the fig regardless of pollination but that pollination is required for ripening. Or if pollination is required to produce the fig at all (like how most fruiting plants work).
Now that I know this, I will probably remove the tree - eventually. It's near the deck and I don't want wasps around. Additionally, there's a big snake that likes to sun itself around the tree. Not that I mind so much, but a lot of visitors get really nervous!
One of these years, I'll get a better variety and plant it further up the hill, and move the stones that hold the heat that the snake likes so he can go hang out up there :)
To be clear - the wasps that pollinate figs are very, very small, and have no stinger.
They are roughly 1.5mm (2 to 4 times smaller than a mosquito) and you will almost certainly not notice them.
Wow what a great community, thanks for sharing. Got any other similar communities? There's also:
* www.bananas.org/
* tropicalfruitforum.com/
* permies.com/forums
I'm keeping a list because I find it difficult to find actual human stories about their experiences with certain plants and I'd like to some day build something to parse online plant-centric communities like these. Especially if they're this niche!
Edit: Only took 10 minutes to find Home sapiens
I wouldn't say a wasp that died in a fig was exploited intentionally by any human, at least, unless the wasps are introduced to figs in order for them to pollinate them. If the absence of action also is considered exploitation, then eating fruit from a tree that a rat has died under could be considered exploitation of animals by that criteria.
Yes, this is a bit of a reductio ad absurdum, but a dead wasp in a fig is already a bit down that road. There is certainly a difference between drinking milk from a cow and a (likely) accidentally dead wasp in a fig.
If you are out in the woods and eat the fruit of a tree that an animal died under and fertilised, that’s fine. It probably also doesn’t extend to animals that were dead long enough to turn into oil.
The figs you buy at a supermarket are of a self-fertile variety of the common fig (Ficus carica), but even the wild variety of this species is not self-fertile