M6.4: Industrial Farming

“Vanishing of the Bees” was a very interesting, albeit scary, movie.  I’ve heard about this topic for years but have never really had any in depth explanation or information like this movie provided.  I certainly never knew how many roles there were, such as “nurse bees” and “forage bees”, and so on.  Another interesting fact is that one out of every three bites of food we eat is made possible by honeybees and pollination.  Finally, I thought the discussion on the limitation of pesticides in France and Germany was great.  Unfortunately, I wonder how close we are to doing something like that here in the United States, the land of corporate lobbyists.  I love that civic protest, at least in France, actually made people aware and made a difference.

As far as factory farming, it makes me think of the movie “Food, Inc.” which was popular several years back, and even more important today I’d say, because nothing has really changed since then.  It doesn’t appear that San Francisco has any factory farms, but there are definitely some in the surrounding counties.  I did check where I am originally from in upstate New York, because it is more rural, and even though there are many farms, I was shocked to see “extreme” numbers when it came to dairy and layers as far as factory farming.

I do not currently compost and I haven’t in the past.  I shouldn’t say I don’t compost at all now, because I do use the compost bins from Recology, but honestly, often times I am confused about what is actually compostable, and where it all even goes after I throw it in that compost bin.  My parents do compost though as they have a small farm and reuse a lot of compost for soil.  They have seen tremendous benefits from composting.