What Would Your Grocery Store Look Like Without Bees?
Honey bees are to thank for a large percentage of the food available to us. Over 100 crops are pollinated by honeybees, all of which are currently at risk of disappearing. If the major declines in bee populations 
don’t begin to change, we may lose some of the most nutritious and tasty fruits and vegetables nature has to offer.? To raise awareness of the important role bees play within our increasingly fragile food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market store temporarily removed all produce derived from plants dependent on pollinators.? Of the 453 products, 237 of them were pulled from the shelves. Products removed included apples, onions, avocados, carrots, mangos, lemons, limes, cantaloupe, eggplant, cucumbers, celery, cauliflower, leeks and much more.? The loss and death of bees, referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder, is believed to be caused by a form of pesticides called neonicotinoids. You can help prevent the disappearance of bees, and all the wonderful produce they pollinate, by choosing to eat organic produce whenever possible and avoid buying products that are made with harmful chemicals.
New Study Shows Pig Health Hurt by GMO Feed
A new study has found that genetically modified animal feed has harmful health effects on pigs. Australian scientists, working with an Iowa farmer and U.S. veterinarians, studied 168 ?commercial? piglets as they were raised and fattened for slaughter. Half of the pigs received non-GMO feed and another half ate feed made from GMO corn and soy. Researchers made sure that the GMO feed contained multiple kinds of genetically 
modified grains that are common in livestock feed; one grain was raised from seed that is herbicide-tolerant, for example, and another from seed that expresses its own pesticide. (One of the complaints of past GMO feeding trials is that they did not reflect actual feeding practices and thus couldn?t account for any potential ?synergy? from exposing animals to more than one of these so-called ?transgenes.?) The vets who examined the pigs post-mortem didn?t know whether they were looking at an animal raised on GMO feed or not ? to preserve the ?blind? nature of the study.??The scientists found that pigs who were fed a diet of only genetically modified grain showed markedly higher stomach inflammation than pigs who dined on conventional feed.
Female Farmers on the Rise
According to the U.S Department of Agriculture, women are increasingly choosing to enter the farming industry.?Results of the Agriculture Census,?
found that the number of U.S. farms operated by women nearly tripled over the past three decades, from 5 percent in 1978 to 14 percent by 2007. ?This growth may be partly due to the fact that the USDA got a lot better at counting very small operations, but farming also seems to be attracting a lot of female producers. Most of those women produce poultry and eggs or specialty crops.
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