Over the past 20 years a steady trickle of scientific papers has reported that there are fewer insects than there used to be. Both the combined weight (what scientists call biomass) and diversity of insect species have declined. Some studies were based on sightings by amateur entomologists, while others involved scientists counting the number of bugs splattered on car windshields. Some collected flying insects in traps annually for years and weighed them. In the past six years, this trickle has become a flood, with more and more sophisticated studies confirming that although not all insect species are declining, many are in serious trouble. A 2020 compilation of 166 studies estimated that insect populations were on average declining globally at a rate of 0.9% per year. But the declines are uneven. Even within the same environments, populations of some insect species have waned, while others have remained stable and still some others increased. The reasons for these differences between insects are unknown, though evidently some are more resilient than others. Until recently, much of the evidence has been drawn from protected areas in Europe and to a lesser extent North America. So what is the picture like elsewhere? A new study offers fresh data on the seasonal migrations of insects in east Asia. These insects, many of them pest species, fly north in spring every year to take advantage of the new growing season, and fly south in autumn to escape the cold. Insects can travel thousands of miles in seasonal migrations. (Photo: Shutterstock)
A progressive fall in the enormous numbers of these migrants indicates that insect declines are indeed a global problem. Millions of migrating insects
Between 2003 and 2020, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing caught almost 3 million migrating insects from high-altitude searchlight traps on Beihuang Island off the coast of northeast China. A further 9 million insects were detected from radar records. In all, 98 species were identified and counted, most of which were either plant-eating crop pests or insects that are their natural enemies – predators and parasites. Over the whole 18-year period, the yearly tally of all identified insects fell by 7.6%, a steady downward trend of 0.4% a year. Insect declines clearly are occurring on a large scale in Asia, just as they have been in Europe and North America. It seems reasonable to assume that the causes are the same. Although we don’t know for certain what those causes are, it seems likely that they operate all over the world. The study also showed that pest insects such as the black cutworm moth, whose caterpillars attack a wide variety of vegetable crops, are as strongly affected by the global decline of insects as non-pest species such as bees and butterflies that were the subjects of most of the previous European and American studies. We are so used to considering insects as pests that it is tempting to think that, in a world with fewer of them, agriculture might prosper as never before. This new study reveals why that is not the case. The researchers used detailed entomological records from the past to construct a complex food web showing how each of the insect pest species caught in the searchlight traps can be eaten by several kinds of insect predators and parasites, often termed “natural enemies”. As an example, black cutworm caterpillars are eaten by green lacewings, among others. The researchers compared how fast 124 pests had declined alongside each of their natural enemies. Over the 18-year study, the abundance of natural enemy species fell at a rate of 0.65% a year, while the plant-eating prey did not decrease in number at all, on average. This suggests that beneficial natural enemy species are more likely to decline than the pests that they feed on. As a result, farmers must either tolerate lower crop yields or use even more chemical insecticides to control pests, leading to still worse declines. Although it is tempting to point a finger at pesticides , bright streetlights or climate change , insect declines almost certainly have multiple causes that overlap. The most frequently named suspect is agricultural intensification. This term covers a multitude of sins. Farm mechanisation, the eradication of hedges, crop monocultures, the increased use of chemical fertilisers and regular applications of pesticides are all intended to produce fields without weeds, pests or diseases. Only a reduced range of wild plants and animals can survive in the narrow field margins and neighbouring roadside verges that remain. Another way of putting it is that farmers have made fields unwelcoming to most insects. Monoculture farming is one feature of agricultural intensification. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Intensification is designed to ensure that as much as possible of the farm ecosystem’s energy flow is diverted into growing crops and livestock for human consumption. It has been estimated that 24% of all plant growth annually is now appropriated by humans, and this rises to a staggering 69% on cropland. These figures roughly doubled over the 20th century. It’s no wonder that insects don’t do well in landscapes such as these, and farmland occupies almost 40% of the land. Why you’ll miss bugs
Insects are by far the most numerous of all animals on Earth. The estimated global total of new insect material that grows each year is an astonishing 1,500 million tonnes. Most of this is immediately consumed by an upward food chain of predators and parasites, so that the towering superstructure of all the Earth’s animal diversity is built on a foundation of insects and their arthropod relatives. If insects decline, then other wild animals must inevitably decline too. There is already evidence that this is happening. In North America, insect-eating bird species experienced an average decline in population size of almost 10 million over the past 50 years, while those for which insects are not essential prey did not decline at all. In Europe, parallel declines of insectivorous swallows, house martins and swifts have all been linked to insect declines . While it’s true that a few insects are a menace to humans (disease-carrying mosquitoes come to mind), the vast majority of insects are friendly: they pollinate crops, provide natural pest control, recycle nutrients and form soil by aiding the decomposition of dead animals and plants. All these processes will slow down if insects become scarce. The economic value of these services is incalculable – agriculture could not continue for long without them. Our insect friends are being crowded out. Somehow, we must find ways to make more room for them. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article . Email*

Insects are Vanishing Worldwide. Now it’s Making it Harder to Grow Food.

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            Students harvesting greens with Teens for Food Justice. Credit: Jessica DiMento.
          
        
      
        
      

    
  


  




Editor’s Note: Increasingly around the USA, middle and high schools are creating opportunities for their students to learn about hydroponic farming. These farms offer food security to students but also offer insights into business. As the students tend to their vegetables, they gain valuable skills they can use in the future and forge a deeper connection with the natural world.CONTENT SOURCED FROM CIVIL EATSWritten by: Lisa HeldJanuary 13, 2023




Inside a 4,000-square-foot greenhouse in west Baltimore at the end of June, untended basil plants were falling over and going to seed. School was out, so the farmers—students at public charter school Green Street Academy—had abandoned their crops for the summer.No matter: Right after the July 4th holiday, a group would be back in the space for a five-week entrepreneurship program, during which they’d be trained to tend to the plants and technology and learn business skills. Since hydroponic farms don’t have to adhere to traditional growing seasons and accelerate plant growth, the herbs would get back on track in no time.The greenhouse, which was completed last year, is one example of a new wave of middle- and high schools around the country that are embracing hydroponic farming. Advances in technology coupled with steady decreases in price make hydroponics an appealing interdisciplinary teaching tool—as well as a way to produce fresh, healthy food for students in the cafeteria and their broader communities.In hydroponics, well-funded startup companies growing vegetables at a mind-boggling scale using high-tech sensors and robots tend to get all the attention. Those companies are making bold claims around the superiority of their systems on metrics such as climate impact and resilience—even as unanswered questions about energy use, impacts on workers and small farms, health, and profitability linger.



































  

    
  
    

      

      
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            Delivering the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s hydroponic Freight Farm. Credit: Michael Jochner.
          
        
      
        
      

    
  


  




But hydroponic systems deserve the spotlight for another reason, said J.J. Reidy, the founder and CEO of a real estate design company that helped build and raise funds for the Green Street greenhouse. They can be plugged into a long list of places—including food banks, low-income housing developments, and schools—where land access and other factors make outdoor farming a challenge. And while the upfront cost is significant, they can produce more food year-round in small spaces, which changes the value calculation. “We have to look at growing food in urban environments,” he said. “So, how do you leverage and activate underutilized space?”In Michael Jochner’s case, that space is a high school parking lot just south of San Jose, California.As the nutrition director for Morgan Hill Unified School District, Jochner is in charge of meals for 8,400 students, and he’s focused on maximizing nutrition while minimizing the environmental impact of those meals. He didn’t like that lettuce coming from USDA Foods was sometimes so old it went bad before his team could serve it, and he was concerned about agriculture’s impact on the drought-stricken state.After a months-long process of convincing the school board to fund the project, in October 2021 he installed his first Freight Farm 30 feet away from his production kitchen. The hydroponic vertical farm housed in a shipping container costs about $150,000, and Jochner calculated it would take about 7.5 years to get a return on the investment. It now produces 1,000 heads of lettuce every week, enough to cover 60 to 70 percent of the greens used in the district’s salad bars. It has been such a success that Jochner’s ready to grow more: A second Freight Farm is on its way to him, and he’s applying for a grant to build another 1,500-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse to grow cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.



































  

    
  
    

      

      
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            The Morgan Hill Freight Farm. Credit: Michael Jochner.
          
        
      
        
      

    
  


  




According to Freight Farms, a Boston-based startup that has so far raised around $26 million in funding, there are 16 K–12 schools around the country currently using the company’s technology, in addition to Freight Farm units at several colleges and food pantries.“I’m really trying to develop a kind of battle plan for other districts,” Jochner said, especially those in drought-stricken regions and urban environments where resources like water and land are scarce. However, getting teachers to use the farms as a teaching tool, especially amidst disruptions caused by Covid-19, has been a challenge for him. He’s working on that side, but it’s not his focus. “I’m going to find the most high-tech way to grow the most salad bar items,” he said, “and if there are educational benefits, that’s icing on the cake.”In contrast, at Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ), a New York City-based nonprofit that installs hydroponic farms in schools primarily in low-income neighborhoods, education is at the core of every project. Many of its farms are built directly into empty classrooms, and students at each school tend the crops with the help of a farm manager. TFFJ also provides curricula that covers STEM skills, health, and food justice.



































  

    
  
    

      

      
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            Students working in Green Street Academy’s hydroponic farm. Credit: Julie Hove Andersen.
          
        
      
        
      

    
  


  




“It’s designed to be a totally immersive experience for these kids, from how you grow the food to why we need to eat differently to why we need to structure our systems around food production differently,” explained Katherine Soll, TFFJ’s CEO and director. “We have the ability to empower a group of leaders with an entirely new way of looking at our food system.”Of course, Soll said the organization does believe the production at each farm also needs to be high enough to have an impact. Each of TFFJ’s farms produces thousands of pounds of vegetables every year, including spinach, lettuce, and cucumbers, which are used in cafeterias or distributed to students’ families and the surrounding community.TFFJ now has five farms in New York City public schools, and is in the midst of adding three more on the Rockaway Peninsula, long known for its food access challenges. Another project in lower Manhattan is also being finalized. And in April, TFFJ unveiled its first farm outside of NYC: In collaboration with Denver Public Schools. TFFJ is building its first non-school farm in a Denver community center, as well as several farms being planned in the city’s schools.The rise of in-school hydroponics builds off the decades of work by school garden programs, including that of Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard and FoodCorps, to build outdoor, soil-based school gardens for health and education. And it isn’t always replacing that approach. At Baltimore’s Green Street Academy, the greenhouse grew out of their robust agricultural training program, which includes a small hoop house for growing vegetables, an orchard, and a chicken coop.



































  

    
  
    

      

      
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            Planting greens at Teens for Food Justice. Credit: John Stuart.
          
        
      
        
      

    
  


  




Because hydroponic lettuces grow quickly, and year-round, the greenhouse will allow the school to produce a volume of food it couldn’t have matched with outdoor agriculture. Reidy says at full capacity, the students could grow 30,000 pounds of lettuce and herbs. That means the project can be run as a business, which serves the school’s model as a space for entrepreneurship.Reidy has already purchased produce from the school for two restaurants he owns inside a Baltimore food hall, and he plans to scale up those purchases as the students grow more. He sees it as a way to provide business and entrepreneurial training, but also to fill gaps in funding, given Baltimore City School’s ongoing financial woes. “We would love to generate revenue for the school and the kids,” he said.It won’t be easy, given that growing food is challenging in any environment, and schools have so many competing priorities. But summer vacation will be over in no time, and the next wave of student farmers will soon get to work on the next generation of basil plants.

Hydroponics Help Urban Schools Grow Food Year-Round

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ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Food Forest Abundance, with operations in 12 countries and 35 states, announced today the creation of their new Freedom Farm Academies. This comes at a time when the UN warns of a looming, widespread food crisis. David Beasley, Executive Director of World Food Program said in an August 22 interview with PBS, "It's a very serious problem. And we're facing an unprecedented food crisis globally. " 
"The solution we demonstrate is not hypothetical, the solution has been proven all over the world, and it has no downside," said Jim Gale, the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Food Forest Abundance. "We believe not just in teaching people how to fish but teaching people how to teach people how to fish. People's eyes light up when they experience and innerstand what we're doing for the world." The solution we demonstrate is not hypothetical, the solution has been proven all over the world, and it has no downside
The Freedom Farm Academies still involve the proven methodology called Permaculture. Permaculture is as old as earth's first forest and is a way of growing food in a manner consistent with what one may find in a forest. The underlying principle is that a forest grows everything, including lots of edible foods, without any pesticides, insecticides or fertilizer. "The forest has seven plus layers," Gale added. "It's all about building soil and designing in foods that we love. The only losers in this process are the companies selling the pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers." Food grown in healthy soil is described as beyond organic. Food Forest Abundance is helping individuals, families and communities to use their land wisely. The new Freedom Farm Academies are strategically positioned to bring these solutions to every community in the world, so people can experience first hand what true freedom looks, feels and even tastes like. "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete is what Buckminister Fuller said," concluded Gale. "Nature is abundant therefore food should be too. You should be able to go into your yard, a city park, your kid's school yard or in the area around your church and grab something to eat that's healthy, and most importantly free," said Darin Olien, co-host of the Emmy™ Award Winning, #1 Netflix docu-series, ' Down to Earth' with Zac Efron . "I did this as a kid and we should do this again. I'm excited that this is igniting a revolution in how we grow our food, how we eat and how we live. I believe it's the key to restoring self reliance and freedom. There should never be anyone going hungry again." About Food Forest Abundance: Food Forest Abundance helps people grow their own food. By leveraging the science of permaculture (permanent agriculture) and by working in harmony with nature, they are able to design and install beautiful food forests at homes, schools, churches, city parks, long term care homes, corporate campuses and more, that yield incredible amounts of healthy, poison free food. Food Forest Abundance has a team of professional permaculture design specialists and installers around the world who are ready to help you today. Growing your own food, strengthening your community and growing freedom. Connect with Food Forest Abundance today at https://foodforestabundance.com/resources/press-room/
SOURCE Food Forest Abundance

Food Forest Abundance Announces New Way to Grow Food for Entire Communities

06/14/22 AT 4:14 AM
Crisis-hit Sri Lanka is asking civil servants to take an extra day off each week to grow crops in their backyards in a bid to forestall a looming food shortage. The island nation's unprecedented economic downturn has left several staple foods in short supply, along with petrol and medicines, and rampant inflation is ravaging household budgets. "It seems appropriate to grant government officials leave for one working day of the week and provide them with the necessary facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards," a cabinet statement said Tuesday. Sri Lanka is letting public servants take three-day weekends to grow crops at home in hopes of blunting an anticipated food shortage Photo: AFP / ISHARA S. KODIKARA
The extra day off would be a "solution to the food shortage that is expected to occur in the future", the statement read, adding that cutting down on civil servant commutes would also help reduce fuel consumption. Last week the United Nations warned Sri Lanka was facing a "dire humanitarian crisis", and said four out of five people in the nation of 22 million were forced to skip meals. Motorists, meanwhile, have suffered through months of chronic petrol and diesel shortages, and long queues of vehicles outside filling stations are a regular sight around the country. Petrol has also been in short supply, and queues at filling stations are common Photo: AFP
Public employees will have every Friday off for the next three months without a pay cut, according to the cabinet decision, but the arrangement will not apply to essential services staff. The government also said any members of the 1.5 million-strong public sector who wanted to travel abroad to find work would be given up to five years of unpaid leave without affecting their seniority or pensions. The move is aimed at encouraging more people to get foreign jobs and send money back to the island, which is labouring under a critical shortage of foreign currency to buy imports. Sri Lanka has defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. Public protests have demanded the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over mismanagement of the country's economy and the severe hardships facing its people. Rajapaksa introduced sweeping tax cuts soon after coming to power in November that have been blamed for leaving the island without the means to pay for essential imports. The cash shortfall was worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, which savaged the local tourism industry and cut remittances sent back home by Sri Lankans working abroad. © Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved. Join the Discussion

Take Holiday To Grow Food, Sri Lanka Tells Civil Servants

By Uditha Jayasinghe
06/14/22 AT 3:15 AM
A man waits inside a three-wheeler near a line to buy petrol from a fuel station, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters / DINUKA LIYANAWATTE
Sri Lanka has approved a four-day work week for public sector workers to help them cope with a chronic fuel shortage and encourage them to grow food, the government said on Tuesday, as it struggles with its worst financial crisis in decades. The island nation, which employs about one million people in its public sector, has been hit by a severe foreign exchange shortage, which has left it struggling to pay for critical imports of fuel, food and medicine. Many of the country's 22 million people have to queue up at petrol stations for hours and have been enduring long power cuts for months. Sri Lanka's Cabinet late on Monday approved a proposal for public sector workers to be given leave every Friday for the next three months, partly because the fuel shortage made commuting difficult and also to encourage them to farm. "It seems appropriate to grant government officials leave of one working day ... to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards or elsewhere as a solution to the food shortage that is expected," the government information office said in a statement. The United Nations last week warned of a looming humanitarian crisis and it plans to provide $47 million to help more than a million vulnerable people. Currency depreciation, rising global commodity prices and a now-reversed policy to ban chemical fertilizer pushed food inflation to 57% in April. The government is in talks for a bailout package with the International Monetary Fund and a delegation is expected in Colombo on June 20. The United States is also ready to help, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after a phone call with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe late on Monday. "During these economically and politically challenging times, the U.S. stands ready to work with Sri Lanka, in close coordination with the International Monetary Fund and the international community," Blinken said on Twitter. Wickremesinghe said this month Sri Lanka needed at least $5 billion to meet essential imports for the rest of the year. © Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022. All rights reserved. Join the Discussion

Sri Lanka Gives Public Workers Extra Day Off To Grow Food

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