It’s National Pollinator Week, and it’s an excellent time to take steps to help pollinators in your community. If you haven’t heard, many of our go-to pollinators—bees, butterflies, moths, birds, bats and so on—are declining in number or out-and-out dying in droves. Pollinators help flowers exchange pollen, which in turn allows the plants to produce [...]
Summer is a great time for traveling and being outdoors, but those two factors combined can contribute to the spread of Agriculture pests that can ruin crops and Ag economies. According to the Florida Farm Bureau, the Sunshine State sees a new pest at least once a month. Such pests might be new to Florida, [...]
We’ve all heard the messages broadcast by environmentalists and conservationists: protect the Earth or else. We’ve also all likely heard about the types of pollution that cause the most damage and that need to be addressed first in an environmental triage of sorts. For instance, replacing the burning of fossil fuels with renewable energy will [...]
We’ve all heard the bad news about declining bee populations and the dire predictions that accompany the loss of Nature’s #1 pollinator. In short, plants need pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths and birds to reproduce, so the absence of pollinators means that plants can’t produce the fruits, vegetables and seeds we humans need to eat. [...]
Avocados are a major crop in the Sunshine State, though citrus is the most well-known. The green, oily fruit is best known for making guacamole and has also made headlines recently for studies that confirm that avocados pack a lot of heart-healthy nutrition. Avocados are a $64 million dollar industry in Florida, and just like [...]
The Alliance for Food and Farming is making headway in the Safe Fruits and Veggies Initiative, which advocates on the behalf of U.S. fresh fruit and vegetable producers. The Alliance was started in 1989 by a group of agriculture associations in response to a 60 Minutes story about a pesticide used on apples. […]
For a quarter of a century, Agri-Fest has introduced Central Florida’s 4th graders to the main sectors of Polk County’s leading agriculture—citrus, beef cattle, phosphate, small farms, blueberries, aquaculture, horticulture, forestry, and water conservation. This year’s event, held April 6-10 and April 13-17 in Bartow, will still show approximately 6,000 4th graders the ropes when it [...]
In the last eight years or so, a strange phenomenon has been occurring: bees have been dying at an alarming rate. Every winter, almost a third of all bee colonies die, and it is happening in Canada and Europe as well. […]
While most of the country is cold and barren, it is the perfect time in Florida to eat as many fresh fruits, vegetables and meats that you can! January is peak time for Florida harvest season with some of the most delicious produce in the country. Nearly 70% of vegetables purchased in the US during [...]
Christmas is a time when we Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The day is spent with family and friends opening gifts, sharing stories, and ignoring (for a few hours, at least) the whirlwind of events in our world that swirl around us. […]
