NFU acting chief horticulture adviser Chris Hartfield says beekeepers and farmers have more reasons to work together than to be at loggerheads.
He writes:
But as they’ve debated how their two worlds collide, the common ground between farmers and beekeepers has rarely been acknowledged.
That is, until I attended a conference in Brussels this month.
Crops devastated by extreme weather events. New pest or disease outbreaks bankrupting businesses. Poor and unsustainable product prices. No effective controls for pests and diseases. Cheaper inferior imports. The list goes on.
... their problems are the very same ones faced by growers and farmers, and it would make more sense to work together on the majority of issues we share in common.
These were the main issues on the minds of producers at a recent European conference I attended. But it might surprise you to hear this was a conference for European beekeepers, not farmers.
While the impacts of pesticides and agricultural intensification were mentioned briefly, it was interesting that the beekeepers spoke for longer and with apparently greater concern about these other challenges. I quickly pointed out their problems are the very same ones faced by growers and farmers, and it would make more sense to work together on the majority of issues we share in common, than be at loggerheads on the few issues where our views differ.
The beekeepers were very interested to hear about UK strategies and schemes farmers are using to benefit the environment, bees and other pollinators. For example the Integrated Pest Management Plans, launched by the Voluntary Initiative, now used by 9,400 farmers and covering around 2.6 million hectares of UK farmland. They were particularly impressed by the work of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE), which in the last couple of years has…
- enabled the creation of nearly 8,500 ha of flower rich habitat, plus other measures benefitting pollinators on 269,000 ha of land.
- provided farmers with seed mix for another 1,400 ha of flowers
- delivered on-farm pollinator events for around 1,500 farmers and advisers
- provided an online training module to improve farm advisers’ knowledge of pollinator friendly farm management practices, already completed by nearly 150 advisers.
Under CFE, farmers are already delivering measures on the ground benefitting pollinators. This was highlighted last week by the great news that an important solitary bee species had been found for the first time in 100 years in Lincolnshire – on a farm growing CFE pollinator mix.