Jillian Anawaty sent us this post:

Announcing the 3rd Annual Sturgis EarthFest

Attention all Earth and Nature Enthusiasts

As summer approaches, area residents and visitors have many opportunities to, as Sturgis EarthFest puts it, “celebrate the abundance of nature and life in the Black Hills.”

Planning for the Third Annual Sturgis EarthFest is well underway with intentions to raise awareness and connect the community around a love, enjoyment, and respect for the planet and each other.

Sturgis EarthFest is a free celebration of green, local, and healthy living in the Black Hills with a farmers-market-type set-up of local foods and goods, live acoustic music, demonstrations and hands-on learning seminars for children and adults. Topics include local resources, gardening, composting, healthy eating, bee keeping, recycling, and outdoor activities. There will be on-going activities and projects throughout the day.

The festival will be held Saturday, June 16th at the park next to the Sturgis Community Center, 1401 Lazelle Street. If there’s rain, EarthFest will move inside the Community Center.

Sturgis EarthFest is accepting applications for vendors and presenters who offer earthy wisdom and/or have something to sell: food, an idea, or a product with an underlying organic, green, local, sustainable goodness. Applications can be submitted at SturgisEarthFest.com.

“We want to bring together some fantastic people who enjoy and showcase the goodness of the earth and renewal,” says Jillian Anawaty, Sturgis EarthFest co-organizer.

What: Sturgis EarthFest 2012

When: Saturday, June 16th from 10 am to 5 pm

Where: Park next to the Sturgis Community Center, 1401 Lazelle Street

Cost: FREE

Contacts:

Jillian Anawaty   Herben Legends, Vibrant Life (605) 484-5401

Scottie Bruch   Sturgis Yoga (605) 490-7972

Michelle Grosek   Bear Butte Gardens (605) 490-2919

A lot of scientific studies are done in the field of nutrition, often with conflicting or misleading results. It’s important for people to know the difference between a well-designed study and one that’s not. It’s also important that people be able to determine the validity of conclusions drawn from a study. Most important of all, don’t trust others to interpret a study—read it for yourself.

To illustrate, I’ll take two studies—both done at Harvard. Let’s start with the colony collapse disorder study overseen by biologist Chensheng Lu. He starts with the question: Why are honeybee colonies suddenly collapsing? He proceeds to review the scientific literature on the subject. That’s good science. Then comes the hypothesis: Colony collapse disorder is caused by honeybee exposure to imidacloprid, an insecticide used on corn and transferred to bees in high fructose corn syrup fed to them by beekeepers. Next step: Design a study to test the hypothesis.

In this case new honeybee colonies populated by healthy bees were established in central Massachusetts. Some were fed HFCS containing various concentrations of imidacloprid, and some received HFCS that was free of the pesticide. All the bees were treated the same except for one variable—the pesticide dose. None of the field workers knew the concentrations of pesticides the bees were getting. Good science. The experiment is described in the final report in such detail that anyone who doubts the results could replicate it. Good science.

The results supported the hypothesis. The greater the pesticide dosage, the faster a colony collapsed, and all of the pesticide-exposed colonies eventually failed. Three out of four of the control hives (no pesticide) survived. So the data collected strongly support the hypothesis. That’s what scientists hope for but don’t always get. Next, the authors suggest questions raised and avenues of study for other scientists researching the same topic. Good Science. Finally, the study is published in a reputable scientific journal where other scientists can learn from it and possibly challenge it. Good science

Here we have the elements of a good scientific study whose results we can take seriously. In the next post we’ll take a look at a bad nutrition study done at the same university.

DRA Member Zita Kwartek on Her Rapid Valley Farm

Want to learn more about growing tomatoes in high tunnels, milking goats, raising grass fed cattle, running a CSA, or processing chickens? Have years of farming experience you are willing to share? Then the DRA farmers network might be for you. The network connects experienced farmers around the area with those who want to know more. DRA will organize tours, educational programs, and other training events.

For more information about DRA, click here.

For more information about the Farmer Network, click here.

Here’s one of my basic life principles: Every technological ‘advance’ brings with it one or more negative effects.

Example: The car is a wonderfully convenient machine for travel and carrying stuff. But it pollutes the air, injures and kills people, and makes cities crowded and dangerous.

So what does this have to do with honeybee colony collapse? Maybe everything. In the early 1990s nicotine-containing pesticides called neonicotinoids were developed that would kill insects but be minimally harmful to humans and other mammals. That was, so to speak, the good part. The really bad part is that this class of insecticides is now believed to be a major contributor to the death and disruption of honeybee colonies. These chemicals affect bee nervous systems and in small doses cause bees to neglect their eggs and larvae and to become disoriented, unable to find the hive after collecting nectar or pollen. Large doses mean death.

The connection between neonicotinoids and honeybee deaths has been suspected since 1995. While other nations have banned or restricted their use, they are still common in the US, where they are applied to corn seeds to prevent damage from corn rootworm. The seed coatings turn to dust as the corn is mechanically planted, and this dust is highly toxic. Once airborne, it can be inhaled by bees. The insecticides are also found to persist in the soil. Because neonicotinoids are water soluble, they can be taken up by roots, move through a plant’s vascular system, and become part of the flower’s pollen and nectar which is then collected and ingested by bees. Yet another pathway for the pesticides to reach bees is high fructose corn syrup fed to bee colonies by beekeepers. HFCS is, of course, made from corn kernels, and if that corn has been nicotine treated, the pesticide will reach the kernels.

A new study released April 5 again points the finger at the neonicotinoids and, as expected, Bayer, the chemical company that produces them, goes on the offensive and tries to discredit the research. If you want to read the study and decide for yourself if it is an example of good science or bad science, here it is.

Chief biologist of the study Chensheng Lu, when asked about the criticism, refers to the book “Silent Spring” and wonders how long it will take for Americans to wake up to the dangers of pesticides.

Honey is concentrated nectar, that sweet sticky amber stuff that bees make, right? Well, not according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Honey, according to agency rules, must not only be made by bees, it must contain pollen. That’s so its origins can be traced and its safety determined. Not that the agency is actually doing that. But it could.

In some parts of the world honey is heated to a high temperature and squeezed through a filter that removes all pollen. Then if the honey is contaminated by antibiotics or heavy metals, the source cannot be traced.

Concerned about the safety of honey sold in the US, the organization Food Safety News decided to do its own tests. They purchased jars, jugs, and plastic bears of honey in ten states and analyzed samples for pollen. Here’s what they found: 76% of honey purchased in grocery stores had all pollen removed. 100% of the samples purchased at Walgreens and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen. 77% of the honey purchased at big box stores like Target and Wal-Mart had the pollen filtered out. 100% of the little packets given out at McDonalds and KFC contained no pollen. Every one of the samples purchased at farmers markets and food-co-ops contained pollen. There’s more to this story, and you can read it here.

This is just honey, of which we eat only small amounts. What if we tested all the food we buy at the supermarket to find out exactly what’s in it? That will be never be done in a lab, of course, but it is done every day in our bodies, which know the difference between a locally grown organic apple and a commercial one that’s been sprayed with pesticide and coated with wax. Or the difference between eggs from a chicken that pecks for insects in the barnyard vs. eggs from caged hens that eat GMO grain and never see sunlight.

So we return to our basic rule here at DLFN: The closer to home a food is produced, the more likely you are to learn how it was produced and how safe it is for you and your family. Local food is the next best thing to growing your own.