When putting together the previous discussion around food quality and basic needs, I discovered that there is a bee crisis in the world. In 2016, the New York Times reported that 44% of the commercial bees just died.

This is especially troubling considering that a whole chapter of the Quran that is named Nahl (the Bee) after this wonderful creation of Allah (swt):

“And your Rabb (Lord) inspired to the bee, "Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and [in] that which they construct. Then eat from all the fruits and follow the ways of your Rabb laid down [for you]." There emerges from their bellies a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought.” [TMQ 16:68-69]

Why are the bees dying?

A slide from a 2013 TED talk by University of Minnesota Professor Marla Spivak, summarizes the issue as follows:

In terms of specifics:

Pesticides: A 2017 study that found that neonicotinoids a pesticide, would result in "honeybee hives less likely to survive over winter, while bumblebees and solitary bees produced fewer queens.
Monoculture: The mass production of specific food results in the elimination of biodiversity, which results in the bees being exposed to the mass chemicals being dumped on that crop. That is, they have no alternative food source due to the lack of biodiversity.
Flowerless landscape: The destruction of native plant species requires beekeepers to feed their bees “a less nutritious diet of sugar water and artificial pollen."
Diseases and parasites: The varroa mite is a real threat that literally sucks the blood out of the bee.

The decline in the bee is a disaster for us. We are so reliant on the work of this little creature: 71 out of the 100 crops that account for 90% of food consumption require the bees pollination services.

How are farms handling the decline of the bee? After all, the 17,000 acres of British Columbia’s blueberry bushes and California’s 600,000 acres of almond trees must be pollinated.

The shortage of bees is being handled in a couple of ways.

Firstly, bees are being transported across vast distances to pollinate flowers and trees. In the US, they are actually trucked from one side of the country to the other because that area simply doesn't have enough bees. What's the consequence? Trucks crash and then emergency workers have to deal with these giant swarms of bees. But even the continental US doesn't have enough bees to feed the factory farms. They have to go to Australia. That's right bees are being sent from Australia to the US.

The second way? Try hand-pollination: in China, they have resorted to hand pollination – yes actual people – because the “wild bees have been eradicated."

How did we get here?

Looking closer at these 4 factors, we see that at least 3 of them directly relate to the Capitalist concept that more production is better. It is the belief in "fairy tales of eternal economic growth," as Greta Thunberg puts it, which is the cause of the factory farm. This, in turn, drives monocultures, flowerless landscapes and the use of pesticides.

Linking to our previous discussion around food quality, the issue here is how the Capitalist approach to agriculture is destroying the bee: a key species that we rely on survival. The problem goes back to the unnatural accumulation of capital that enables the corporation to amass enough wealth to buy out the market. This mentality is well articulated in the "Expand or Expire" strategy that Don Tyson adopted to become the farming conglomerate his company is today:

"Tyson couldn't get bigger just by adding more farms or slaughterhouses. If the company expanded its own operations, it would put more chickens on the market inevitably leading to oversupply. But buying a competitor neatly solved two problems with one move inevitably leading to oversupply. But buying a competitor neatly solved two problems with one move. Tyson could expand without boosting the overall supply of chicken. Tyson simply bought out its competitor's market share without adding one bird to the market."

Before Capitalism, a business couldn't raise such a large amount of funds to buy the land, equipment, and so on to create the factory farm that is wiping out the habitat of the bee. Although people will propose bandage solutions, the root cause are the capital markets that create unbalanced economies causing the chaos in the ecosystem.

It never ceases to amaze me how the most basic natural processes have been ruined by Capitalism. It speaks to the lie that the Western Capitalist civilization is based on science. It is based on freedom: the freedom of ownership that unleashes the desire to acquire things resulting in the destruction of people, places and even insects.

Isn’t man’s greed a natural thing?

Islam does recognize that man is inherently greedy. Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, "If Adam's son had a valley full of gold, he would like to have two valleys, for nothing fills his mouth except dust. And Allah forgives him who repents to Him."

However, Islam provides safeguards to ensure that this greed doesn’t destroy us individually or collectively. For example, those that want to build a business must use the Islamic partnership model and cannot use the corporate entity to raise funds in the bond and stock markets. Consequently, the business can’t raise enough capital to purchase the market.

More importantly, it gives human beings an alternative to materialism. Islam allows human beings to channel the desire to acquire spiritual goals with the promise that this everlasting compared to the temporary nature of Dunya (the worldly life):

“Every soul will taste death, and you will only be given your [full] compensation on the Day of Resurrection. So he who is drawn away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise has attained [his desire]. And what is the life of this world except the enjoyment of delusion.” [TMQ 3:185]

In the next post, we will in sha Allah discuss the issue of water.