The Coming Collapse of Commercial Agriculture

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If you've been to the grocery store lately, then you know just how much food prices are skyrocketing. In fact, the money that got you four bags of groceries last year will get you only three bags this year. And now that gas prices are going up almost daily, food prices will shoot up even more. But now there's another, far more ominous reason to home garden.  There's a threat emerging that is so potentially catastrophic, it could literally mean .the collapse of commercial agriculture The honeybees are disappearing. In the past few years, we've been hearing more and more about something called Colony Collapse Disorder - it's a fancy way of saying that the honeybees are dying, and we don't know why. But if the decline isn't reversed, the honeybee could well go the way of the dinosaur. Some commercial beekeepers are losing as much as 90% of their bee population each season. Bees are essential to the pollination of over 90 different commercial crops. If that happens, our industrial farming system will completely collapse. Commercial farming depends on healthy honeybees. Bees pollinate over 90 different commercial crops. Without bees, we would not be able to enjoy things like grilled summer squash, crisp cold cucumbers, or sweet, delicious melon. Many people take good food like this for granted ... and now those foods are at grave risk.    Giant farm conglomerates rent bees from commercial beekeepers to pollinate their hives. The hives are trucked to one region, released from the hive to pollinate the crops, and are packed up again and taken to the next region. But since 2003, more and more often, farmers have been opening up their hives to find dead bees or, more often, bees that just don't return to the hive. That means there are fewer bees to do more work ... which stresses the bee population even more. For a long time, despite numerous theories, nobody  knew what the real cause was. But now we know. "Highly toxic" pesticide causing mass extermination of honeybees Late last year, a brave whistleblower leaked a memo from  secret files at the Environmental Protection Agency. That  memo was a smoking gun. For years, the EPA has known  the true cause of the honeybee extinctions. The culprit is  a chemical pesticide, clothianidin. Here's what the EPA's own internal memo said: "Clothianidin's major risk concern is to non-target insects (that is, honey bees). Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid insecticide that is both persistent and systemic. Acute toxicity studies to honey bees show that clothianidin is highly toxic on both a contact and an oral basis. ... Information from standard tests and field studies ... suggest the potential for long-term risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects." This pesticide was approved by the EPA, despite warnings from some of its own best and brightest scientists. And today, it's used just as much as ever. If clothianidin were outlawed tomorrow, could the damage be  reversed? We don't know. But we do know this: if the honeybee population isn't restored to healthy levels - and quickly - our  nation, not to mention the world, could lose over 90 different  crop varieties, because they could no longer be pollinated on a large scale. Look, you already know all the great reasons to   grow your own food: You save hundreds of dollars a year on groceries The food you grow yourself with heirloom seeds is more nutrient dense than anything you can buy at the store Home-grown food is free of all the toxic pesticides and insecticides found on grocery store produce You can freeze, can, or dehydrate your surplus to provide a year-round supply of food for your family. But of all the reasons to plant a home garden, the risk to commercial agriculture is probably number one. And here's the thing about a home garden: Even if the bees completely disappear, you can still grow the same wide variety of crops you've always grown. Here's why. The areas hardest hit by the bee epidemic are those vast tracts of land devoted to industrial monoculture. And that makes perfect sense because that's where the toxic pesticide clothianidin is mostly heavily used. The bees that buzz around home gardens don't seem to be as affected ... at least not yet. But what if they were? What if your local neighborhood hive were hit by Colony Collapse Disorder? You'd still be okay, and here's why. There's a little known secret about pollination that most home gardeners don't know. Produce like this, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, and more, could disappear from grocery store shelves within the next few years. You can actually hand pollinate anything a bee can pollinate! Giant corporate farms with millions of acres can't pollinate by hand, of course. It would take an impossible amount of manpower. But home gardens? They're small and manageable and can easily be hand pollinated.  Imagine this. A few short years from now, you go to the store, and the colorful produce that once filled the shelves is no longer there. No beets ... no cabbage ... no cucumbers, onions, or carrots. No melons, no chard, no tomatoes, or peppers. No squash or eggplant. They've become a rare and valuable commodity. (Beans and peas would be in short supply, too, because although they're self-pollinating, bees help them produce even more.) But when it comes to vegetables, you're the richest man in town. Thanks to non-commercial bees that thrive nearby, or help from the kids with manual pollination, you've grown a bumper crop of these vanishing vegetables in your backyard using the heirloom seeds from your Survival Seed Bank. Can you imagine how valuable the produce from your own back yard would be? (In fact, with the heirloom crops you'll produce in your home garden, you'll have yourself the makings of a nice little home business.) That's what makes the Survival Seed Bank such a wise investment. It includes 22 varieties of heirloom, non-hybrid seeds - enough to produce a full acre of nutrient dense food. 12 of those varieties (beets, cabbage, cucumbers, onions, carrots, melons, chard, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and two types of peppers) are currently endangered by the disappearance of the honeybees. They could all but vanish from commercial production. With the Survival Seed Bank, you'll have an unending supply of seeds. Because these seeds are non-hybrid, non-GMO seeds, you can save seeds from each harvest and plant them again the following year. You can't do that with most commercial hybrid seeds. Seeds from the Survival Seed Bank are easier to grow Our seeds have extremely high germination rates, far above government-required standards. That means you don't have to overplant just to get an adequate harvest. And no wasted seed, either. You plant only what you need, and save the rest. Plus, each Seed Bank comes with Nitro Starter Solution. When you soak your seeds in Nitro Starter just before planting, it gives your seeds a germination and growth advantage. Every Seed Bank also comes with the e-book Survival Gardening With Heirlooms. The book gives you complete, step-by-step instructions for planting, cultivating, harvesting, and even storing your crops. This season, we've been able to offer the Survival Seed Bank at the discounted price of $149. But since we've learned about the pesticide threat to the honeybees, we're more determined than ever to get Seed Banks into the hands of as many gardeners as possible. That's why, for all online orders, we're offering an additional 50% off the Survival Seed Bank until this Friday, at noon Central Time. Simply enter the coupon code SAVE50 in the coupon field on the order form. (In order to make these available to a large number of customers, we're strictly enforcing a limit of no more than 4 Seed Banks per order.) Every year sees more and more die-off of the honeybees. You can ensure you have an unbroken supply chain of the at-risk crops we mentioned earlier. There's still time to get a garden in this year and save some seeds to plant next season. So don't delay! Click here to get your Survival Seed Bank today! Sincerely, The Team at Solutions From Science P.S. Even if you don't plant this year, you can save (or bury) your seed bank for future seasons. In fact, it may be the only way to ensure you have access to these at-risk crops in the coming years! Help a friend by forwarding this newsletter to them! This newsletter is a free weekly service of Solutions From Science. You can reach us at: Solutions From Science 815 W. Main St. P.O. Box 518 Thomson, IL 61285 Email us at info@solutionsfromscience.com  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Friends:  Yes, there is a commercial message at the end of this urgent post, given as a partial solution to the problems this article brings up.  But PLEASE continue to DEMAND an end to these people / profit made pesticide and herbicide horrors in which we are now living.  Chris J. Slater