A Bee's Business: Trust Me, Honey

Nick Versteeg mentions in his documentary, Food Security: It’s In Your Hands, that one out of three mouthfuls of food we eat in each meal is somehow a product of bee ‘processing’. I knew bees provided essential ecosystem services within our environment; however, I was not aware they contributed so much to the natural processing and production of our food. Under threat from pesticide use, pests and more broadly, climate change, the survival of the bee is critical if we want to keep eating nutrient rich foods. If we let bees fall to the wayside, serious reductions in crops and agriculture throughout the world will be seen.

In order to bring bees back into the meal, and to acknowledge the work that they do, I thought I would examine one meal, and see if the fact holds true: do bees really contribute one out of three mouthfuls of food in every meal? The bolded ingredients within the list signify that we can partially thank our buzzing friends for their part in making this ingredient possible. A few friends and I made a homemade pizza; here is the breakdown of ingredients:

Documentary Screening Inspiring and Educational

Last Thursday, Nick Versteeg arrived on campus to show his documentary "Food Security: It's In Your Hands". Although we started with a few technical hiccups, I believe the event was quite a success! It was great to see interested students and community members out at this event. The documentary was wonderful and I came away feeling inspired. As an environmental studies student I often become overwhelmed by environmental issues and it becomes hard not to shut-down and easy to give up hope. This film has re-energized my drive and passion for food security and ensured me that others are just as pissed off.

The film asks the question, can we feed the world the way we farm today?  The U.N. estimates that there will be 9 billion people by 2050. The answer is NO. The film introduces us to a variety of characters. Farmers who have converted their commercial farms to organic farms, young farmers, dairy farmers, authors, soil specialists, and beekeepers. Cheap imports undermine local farmers and makes it impossible for them to compete on the market. Only 4% of the population in BC are farmers, the rest are "urbanites". That means if we want to encourage food security and local, sustainable agriculture we require more people to get into farming. Farming isn't the most sexy or glamorous career for students emerging from university to pick.Young farmers Heather Walker and Brock Mcloed bought ten acres of farmland in Cowichan Valley and turned it into Makaria Farm. They remind the audience that environmentally sustainable farming is financially viable and a positive career choice for those who want to live out their values. I learned a great deal about the importance of soil and what is happening to our bees.

Green Cuisine, Lotus Pond, Haliburton Community Organic Garden, Beekeeping, Local Food Guide

March 15, 2011
Okay, so I haven't written for awhile, but I learned more about my relationship to food this last week. I have honestly been eating very poorly, as I have a habit of having healthy food on-hand that is easy to prepare until I get too famished to care what I eat. Then I go in for cheap junk food.

But when I do plan what I eat, I can find some real gems. I did go to the Green Cuisine vegetarian restaurant downtown in Market Square ( http://www.greencuisine.com/contact ). Green Cuisine has a $15 cookbook for sale, which I am considering buying because it would be nice to get back into cooking for myself. They have awesome vegetarian, buffet style food that is pay by weight. The Lotus Pond restaurant also has vegetarian buffet lunches that are pay by weight ( http://lotuspond.webs.com/Index.htm ).
 
I went to what I thought was a Saturday (usually on Wednesdays) work party at Haliburton Community Organic Farm, but ended up instead in a beekeeping workshop ( http://haliburtonfarm.org/wp/ ). We as volunteers worked with one of the farmers and Gordon Hutchings (beekeeper) to set up a bee box (http://sites.google.com/site/hutchingsbeeservice/ ). We then were given a slide-show presentation about the hundreds of native bee species, how they are co-evolved to be the best pollinators for our area, and how we need shift focus away from the declining monoculture of invasive bees for pollinators and towards native bees are provided with food plants and suitable habitat. The bee workshop reminded us that most weeds are a stable and long-term source of food which helps the pollinators to survive in-between when our various crops are in flower, and so weeds should be left alone in fallow areas of your garden.