Obama creates task force to stem decline in honey bee population
WASHINGTON, June 20, 2014 – President
Obama capped off
National Pollinator Week Friday by ordering the creation
of a federal task force to promote the health of honey bees and other pollinators.
As part of the strategy, USDA is directed to develop best management practices
to enhance pollinator habitat on federal lands and use the department’s conservation
programs to increase the acreage and forage value of pollinator habitat.
In a memorandum, the
president also tasked the EPA with assessing the effects of pesticides,
“including neonicotinoids,” on pollinator health. The White House notes that
pesticides are among the “combination of stressors [that] likely caused” recent
severe drops in honeybee populations, a syndrome that scientists are calling
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The memo orders
executive departments and agencies to avoid the use of pesticides in sensitive
pollinator habitats.
The
number of managed U.S. honey bee colonies has dropped from 6 million in 1947 to
just 2.5 million today, according to the White House. The decline threatens more
than $15 billion worth of agricultural production – including over 130 fruits
and vegetables – that depends on the health and well-being of honey bees. Poor
bee nutrition, loss of forage lands, parasites, pathogens and lack of genetic
diversity may also have a role in CCD, scientists say.
“Pollinators contribute
substantially to the sustainability of our food production systems, the
economic vitality of the agricultural sector, and the health of the
environment,” Bob Perciasepe, deputy EPA administrator, and Krysta Harden,
deputy USDA secretary, wrote in a joint blog post on the White House website.
The Pollinator Partnership, a non-profit
organization devoted exclusively to the health and protection of pollinators, said
the memorandum was “the result of a nearly 20-year campaign to increase
awareness and action for pollinators and marks a new dawn of wise land
management across the country.”
The document “demonstrates
real leadership on the part of the President and his science team,” the group said in a statement.
In a separate announcement,
USDA said it is providing $8 million in Conservation Reserve Program incentives
for Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin farmers and
ranchers who establish new habitats for declining honey bee populations.
More than half of the
commercially managed honey bees are in these five states during the summer. The
funds are in addition to $3 million USDA designated to the Midwest states to
support bee populations earlier this year through the Natural Resources
Conservation Service Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
“American agricultural
production relies on having a healthy honey bee population," Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release. “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."
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