The biggest problem I see with those who would exploit the
word "sustainable" is that they fail to see any real need to compromise,
especially with regard to their own cost of living. As Bob has recognized,
it's possible to sell honey along the lines Brian advocates for $8+/lb, at
least within limits. Similarly, we can eat pork from hogs rooting in the
woods, eat nuts from geographically dispersed "polycultural" farms, and
burn homegrown moonshine for our energy needs. The reason we don't is that
all these practices are extremely dollar-inefficient. Just do the math: if
mankind is going to devote five times as many manhours to producing every
pound of honey/sweetener (and similarly every pound of pork, nuts, etc.,
etc.), mankind is going to have to consume a whole lot less of many other
things in order to free up the extra manhours for honey production. This
presents a secondary problem of requiring a bunch of people to give up
their comfortable city jobs and accept getting stung while doing manual
labor.
Of course, for the individual beekeeper there are other solutions, most
notably convincing rich, gullible yuppies to spend five times as much for
his honey as he would be willing to pay himself. That doesn't solve any
problems, but it does shift the cost away from the beekeeper onto rich
yuppies. Shifting our problems onto other people is hardly this shining
beacon of sustainability, though. In fact, shifting costs onto other
people (e.g. proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria, pollution,
inciting foreign wars, etc.) defines the very antithesis of
sustainability. Yuppies may make for unsympathetic victims, but even if we
embrace Robin Hood style stealing from the rich to give to the poor
farmer/beekeeper, we've avoided the much bigger question of sustainability
of how to go about feeding and providing for the other 6.99 billion people
for whom price matters.
I think there is, however, a fairly clear model of sustainability we can
aspire to insofar as we're able to swim against the stream and make the
necessary compromises. I see that model as one of a lot more small farms,
and one of labor replacing chemical/industrial inputs. Specifically for
beekeeping, I think that would mean a lot more sideline/small-scale
commercial beekeepers keeping more or less permanent yards and deriving
their beekeeping income primarily from honey sales. If farms in general
were comparably dispersed and diversified, the need for migratory
pollinators would practically disappear. I think that model is clear; how
to get there, both individually and collectively, is the challenge.
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