eating insect pollinated crops

[iirtriiiokn]

I think I might stop eating commercially produced insect pollinated crops because they have to transport bees around to pollinate the crops, which isn't good for the bees. Obviously I'll still eat insect pollinated crops if they're just from someones garden or something where they don't keep bees. The only thing is, all other vegans eat insect pollinated crops so maybe I'm missing something, and there's actually nothing wrong with eating them, like on Gary Yourofsky's site, he says eating insect pollinated crops is fine because the pollination industry will go once the world goes vegan, but some crops rely on the pollination industry, so idk if that's the case. What do you think?

[brimstoneSalad]

Aside from growing it yourself or eating exclusively seaweed and cinnamon, I'm not sure what your options are. Growing your own is a good option (really sustainable) if you have the land and the know how, but otherwise I don't see how you'd get any guarantees.

Aside from something like seaweed or cinnamon I mentioned, are there any crops that aren't pollinated by insects and wouldn't involve insect purchases sometimes at the commercial level?
They're pretty much all fruit/seeds which need to be pollinated, or vegetables which are grown from seeds which are produced through large scale systems that also need pollination.

This doesn't seem possible and practicable.

I don't think we'll stop using insects if the world goes vegan.

[iirtriiiokn]

Aside from growing it yourself or eating exclusively seaweed and cinnamon, I'm not sure what your options are. Growing your own is a good option (really sustainable) if you have the land and the know how, but otherwise I don't see how you'd get any guarantees.

Aside from something like seaweed or cinnamon I mentioned, are there any crops that aren't pollinated by insects and wouldn't involve insect purchases sometimes at the commercial level?
They're pretty much all fruit/seeds which need to be pollinated, or vegetables which are grown from seeds which are produced through large scale systems that also need pollination.

This doesn't seem possible and practicable.

I don't think we'll stop using insects if the world goes vegan.

there's quite a bit too eat:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kaz-vorpal/list-of-crops-that-dont-need-honeybees/10151447302312854/

With all this available, is it really worth it to support the pollination industry?

[brimstoneSalad]

there's quite a bit too eat:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kaz-vorpal/list-of-crops-that-dont-need-honeybees/10151447302312854/

With all this available, is it really worth it to support the pollination industry?

That list is specifically about honeybees, but other insects are rented or bought as well for pollination. The various other pollinators are mentioned in the description. You can't really know if the produce you're buying is naturally pollinated by local insects, or if they were brought in.

Self/wind pollination is not entirely reliable.
If you want a good yield for many plants, for tomatoes for example, you have to go outside with an electric toothbrush (or other vibrating device) and touch each of the flowers. A tedious task, which insect pollinators do for you by stirring up the flower in collecting nectar. Insects actually enhance self-pollination, and are far more reliable and efficient than wind, particularly if you're trying to shield your tomatoes from damage during heavy winds (which you should do, they don't benefit by being shaken up all of the time).

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/kind-bees-pollinate-tomatoes-70564.html
You can buy bumblebees online too.

I've never grown corn, so I can't attest to that; apparently they're much better self pollinators, but you can get better yield by controlling the pollen there too. It's likely corn farmers never buy pollinators, although they probably buy other insects for pest control, and I know they spray insecticides and poison other pests like mice.

If you're particularly concerned with bees, a list like this is much more useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees
It's more of a spectrum.
Although that's not inclusive of other plants pollinated by purchased and shipped pollinators. Note that tomatoes are absent there.

Anyway, that page you linked to just seems to be putting to rest the idea that we'll starve without honeybees. True, because there are many other pollinators we can switch to. And even without pollinators we get some productivity (particularly true for the most prolific self and wind pollinators in optimal conditions). But yield is pretty bad for a lot of fruit without them. I think you'd have to look at it on a crop by crop basis. Unless pollinators are completely useless to pollination, you can't assume a farmer isn't spending a hundred bucks to order them online to improve yield. And frankly, he or she should. Yield is important from an environmental perspective.

Anyway, let's assume that there's plenty to eat with the crops that use no pollinators. Why the fixation on pollination?
We're talking about insects, which are marginally sentient at best, and which regardless of pollination use are killed in huge numbers on conventional and organic farms alike by pesticides and purchased predatory insects.
You'd probably do more good by looking at which crops suffer the most from pest problems and avoiding those.
Or just ignore the insect issue entirely for the time being, and focus on mainly eating crops which are the most environmentally sustainable and have the best yield and lowest margin of waste.

Either way, there's a point of seriously diminishing returns for your effort in avoiding harm. Putting in exponentially more effort, you'll avoid a very very tiny amount of harm. At a certain point, it's better to put that same time and energy into other pursuits to help prevent greater harm. There's a certain point at which harm elimination becomes obsessive, and you no longer serve as a viable example to others and fail to inspire people toward veganism, but frighten them off from it instead. Your positive effect on others far outweighs your negative effect on marginally sentient insects.

I'm always linking to this:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/making-transition-vegetarian/ideas-vegetarian-living/tiny-amount-animal-products-food/
I think that same pragmatic reasoning applies to foods associated with very tiny amounts of harm too.

[iirtriiiokn]

...

Hmm yea I guess it is kind of impossible to avoid all insect pollinated crops. Hopefully some day bee pollination will bee replaced by robot pollination like in this video: http://sciencelearn.org.nz/Science-Stories/Seeds-Stems-and-Spores/Sci-Media/Video/RoboBee

[brimstoneSalad]

Hmm yea I guess it is kind of impossible to avoid all insect pollinated crops. Hopefully some day bee pollination will bee replaced by robot pollination like in this video: http://sciencelearn.org.nz/Science-Stories/Seeds-Stems-and-Spores/Sci-Media/Video/RoboBee

More likely we will be able to some day genetically engineer the plants to not require pollination at all (even self pollination).
There would be advantages to robots in the field for pest/weed control and harvesting, though.