PARIS: The US government will boost research and preserve 2.8 million hectares of habitat for bees, monarch butterflies and other insects as part of a wide-ranging strategy to bolster the population of pollinators that are vital to the nation’s food crops.
The long-anticipated national strategy from a White House task force aims to bring annual bee losses to 15 percent, down from more than 40 percent last year. Managed honeybee colonies provide pollination services to the nation’s crops that are valued at $US15 billion ($19 billion), according to the US Department of Agriculture.
California almond growers pay upward of $US290 million a year to bring tens of thousands of managed honeybee colonies to their groves, according to the USDA. A recent survey of the nation’s beekeepers estimated annual losses of 42 percent, up from 35.2 percent the year before, and well above the 15 to 17 percent that is considered economically sustainable.
Much of the plan depends on public-private partnerships, education and research. But it also directs multiple agencies to take action, such as managing land in ways that promote pollinator habitats. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, is weighing the effects of pesticides on honeybees used to pollinate crops, and already is slowing the use of neonicotinoid compounds that have been associated with colony declines.
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