Springtime often brings to mind the thought of bees buzzing around patches of flowers.
Tiger Dining has teamed with the Bee Biodiversity Initiative to begin to “experiment” with the heritage crops like American potato beans in their meals.
“We want students to be connected to the land that they’re actually studying here in this wonderful agricultural institution,” said Bashira Chowdhury, a pollination ecologist with the Bee Biodiversity Institute in Auburn’s College of Agriculture.
Chowdhury said that as they are collecting more information dealing with the heritage crops, she encourages people to share their personal stories of local food with the institute.
“I think people eat the culture before they eat the nutrition any day of the week,” she said.
Chowdhury explained the dangers facing the modern ecosystem.
Chowdhury said over time the American diet has shifted from being primarily made up of vegetables and fruits to one of wheat, dairy and meat. As a result, Chowdhury said many farmers have converted their land into pastures or suitable to grow grains.
“We’re a pretty big meat and dairy culture [now],” Chowdhury said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it means when it comes to agriculture that’s where the market is, and that’s what farmers are going to grow.”
Without a diverse range of plants, crop yields are negatively affected by the lack of pollination from bees.
Evidence of declines in bee populations in North America remains iffy, Chowdhury said. Only the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have collected vast amounts of data on bees over time. Their records have shown a decline, though, in the solitary bee population since the industrial era.
Still, Chowdhury said working in the field it’s noticeable in certain places where there are fewer types of bees than in others.
“There’s no reason we can’t start the conservation process,” she said.
The goal of the Bee Biodiversity Initiative is to capture a better understanding of Alabama’s bee population.
“When it really comes down to preserving pollination and protecting bees, it’s going to be a matter of also preserving our health and our culture,” Chowdhury said.
During the last year, the Bee Biodiversity Initiative started the Heritage Food Project as a way to try to preserve pollinators and promote healthier eating by getting people in the Auburn community, and Alabama as a whole, interested in growing a diverse range of plants again.
The Heritage Food Project is doing so by linking the efforts with the history of the culture of certain crops.
“We want to keep the state the way it is. We want to celebrate that heritage,” Chowdhury said. “This is a great way we think if we can not only help bees and people be nutritious, but also just help Alabama be Alabama a little bit more.”
The Heritage Food Project is primarily focused on legumes with importance in Alabama but has also explored the use of lady peas, crowder peas and violets, which can be used to make jelly.
“It’s a really wonderful feeling to be reconnected to your food culture,” she said. “It just gives you a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside. There’s no way to really quantify that.”
Many markets in the Auburn area sell locally grown produce. Hornsby Farms in Auburn sells their pickled okra, preservatives and other fresh vegetables, all grown in Auburn. George’s Farmers Market, located just north of Auburn, sells produce harvested from their farm as well as items from other local vendors.
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