M6.4 Blog: Industrial Farming

The story of the vanishing bees is something I have been aware of for a while now but I never fully understood the full scope of the phenomena. From the video, I have learned that there is a name for this: colony collapse disorder. I find it absolutely baffling that the thousands of bees just disappear with no trace of deaths. Some thousands of bees disappear within hours! Prior to this video, I had just assumed it was a slow decrease. I have always understood the implications of bee loss but now that the bees are vanishing faster than ever, it makes me wonder what options we will have when the bees are all gone? I also did not know that commercial bee keepers kill the queen bee to replace it with a younger one. It is time to consider more holistic ways to maintain bee colonies.

Dirt! changed the way I viewed the soil. It contains so much more life than most would like to think about. The dirt shapes the way our produces are grown and it is crucial that we take care of this. We do not have alternative sources to get "fresh" dirt that have not been already contaminated with pesticides.

There is currently no factory farm in the immediate area near me in San Francisco. I am not surprised with this as there is no room for this in a large metropolitan area. However, there were plenty to be found in counties to the north and east of San Francisco. I was also not surprised to see that there were more dairy farms more than any other products. I know up in Sonoma Country, there are sustainable and free range chickens and eggs for purchase. Something that is becoming increasingly popular are co-ops for meat.

I am currently composting in my home and at work. I appreciate that SF provides means for it's residents to compost easily. I will be moving to NYC in a few months and though the city is progressive in EH standards, a quick google search shows that it's residents do not compost frequently and it's city's compost expansion program has been put on hold.