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Annual Folklife Festival Showcases American Diversity

Washington — America’s diversity in agriculture and culture was on display at the recent 10-day Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington.

One popular exhibit highlighted the contributions that bees make to agriculture. Wearing a cap adorned with a large stuffed bumblebee, Sean McKenzie described his passion for raising bees and efforts to teach others about the value of the flying insects.

“There is a stigma about bees,” he said. “People usually think of them in terms of honey and stings. But bees are a main pollinator of all the crops we eat.” McKenzie, a keeper of 12 hives, volunteer bee educator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and student at the University of the District of Columbia, pointed to the queen bee in a hive that he hopes will produce five gallons of honey in 2012.

Initiated in 1967, the annual summer Folklife Festival has become an international model for presenting the vitality of cultural traditions. In 2012, the festival focused on three themes: the combined influence on communities of the U.S. public and land-grant university system and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); creative community-level responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis; and the arts of a predominantly African-American community in Washington.

In July 1862, in the midst of America’s Civil War, Congress passed legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln that would transform public education in the United States. The Morrill Act established the nation’s network of public land-grant universities so working-class people could obtain practical college educations in agriculture and mechanics and other job-producing skills. Today these 217 schools across the country enroll more than 3.5 million undergraduates and 1.1 million graduate students and are heavily engaged in research. The same year, Lincoln signed into law an act to create the USDA.

Next to McKenzie, the bee man, were exhibits hosted by Missouri State University. At the center of one was a depiction of a large slice of pizza surrounded by models of the components that go into making the pie: cows as the source of the cheese and meat toppings, wheat that when ground into flour goes into the crust, and gardens of peppers and tomatoes used to make pizza sauce and vegetable toppings. “We grow pizzas in Missouri,” Missouri State nutrition instructor Stacy Robb said proudly.

Offering visitors a chance to experience even more about cows, the Midwestern university’s dairy exhibit provided the opportunity to “milk” a life-sized model of a cow. The milking, which produced streams of water, was overseen by agricultural life sciences student and festival volunteer Olivia Ermine, who encourages more young people, especially women, to take up careers in agriculture.

Next to the replica of the milk cow was a large red-and-white truck resembling an ambulance. It was a mobile veterinary unit that since 2008 has brought animal health services to people throughout the state of Mississippi. The vehicle, supported by private contributions, will be joined by a second unit in November, said Mississippi State University student Elizabeth Hiebert.

Down from there, the University of New Mexico’s Nieves Torres showed visitors a ground “altar” of foods native to her Southwestern region. Triangles of dried pinto, red, white and black beans surrounded by apples, oranges and limes paid homage to the north, south, east and west compass points that Native Americans use to guide them throughout life. Across the way, Valerie Segrest of Northwest Indian College in Washington state staffed an exhibit that promoted respect for foods native to the Western Hemisphere, such as salmon and berries.

Hiapo Cashman, a native Hawaiian, nurtured a small garden of taro plants. The roots of the plants are ground into a starchy food called poi, a staple in Hawaii, while the leaves are used as wrappings for grilling foods. He said Hawaiians view taro as an elder sibling.

“If we take care of our elder siblings, they’ll take care of us,” Cashman said.

ABOUT BEES

There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world. Every colony has a queen bee, worker bees and a drone. The worker and queen bees are female. Only the queen bee can reproduce. Worker bees clean the hive, collect pollen and nectar to feed the colony, and take care of the offspring. Drones' only job is to mate with the queen.

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