The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced it will provide $8 million for a Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), an initiative for farmers and ranchers to establish new habitats for the declining honey bee population.
The program operates in Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, which collectively hold over half of the country's commercially managed honey bees, a USDA news release reported. Over $15 billion worth of agriculture production that includes over 130 fruits and vegetables rely on honeybee pollination.
"American agricultural production relies on having a healthy honey bee population," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, said in the news release. "In recent years, factors such as diseases, parasites, pesticides or habitat loss have contributed to a significant decline in the honey bee population. This $8 million is part of the Administration's ongoing strategy to reverse these trends and establish more plant habitat on Conservation Reserve Program lands to restore the bee population."
The CRP pollinator initiative hopes to increase CRP land, providing more nutritious pollen available for forage; they are working to accomplish this by replacing vegetation with high nutrition seed mixes. Honey bee populations have declined dramatically in recent decades; the number of managed colonies dropped from six million in 1947 to only 2.5 million today.
This week President Obama issued a memorandum that directed U.S. government agencies to put more efforts into "protecting and restoring" honeybees and other pollinator populations. Many steps are already being taken to protect these crucial insects.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a public education campaign that will teach families and businesses what they can do to help preserve pollinator populations. The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) maintains four laboratories across the country that researches "all aspects of bee genetics, breeding, biology and physiology, with special focus on bee nutrition, control of pathogens and parasites, the effects of pesticide exposure and the interactions between each of these factors," the news release reported.
