Food Security: Why Congress Should Care About the Beepocalypse

By Rep. John Conyers Jr. and Michael Shank
Roll Call

Excerpts:

This year, food security is set to suffer another big setback, and the culprit could not be cuter: honeybees. Last winter, America’s beekeeping industry lost nearly half of all its bee colonies. And the numbers keep falling. Last summer, in the largest bee kill on record, more than 50,000 bumblebees were killed in Oregon as a direct result of exposure to an insecticide applied to trees for cosmetic purposes.

The killing has gotten so bad that people are calling it a beepocalypse. This is a serious situation. One-third of the food produced in North America depends on pollination by our honeybees. Nearly 100 varieties of fruits depend on honeybee pollination, from almonds (which are California’s third-largest export) to avocados to apples to cranberries.

If America loses the bees, our country will lose these industries as well, the result of which would be a serious blow to our economic and food security. The annual economic value of pollinators, including honeybees, is $190 billion globally and $20 billion to $30 billion in agricultural production in the United States.

This devastating trend is not unique to the United States, however. Earlier last year, the European Union ratcheted up its emergency response to the dying bee population, suspending for two years the use of neonicotinoids — insecticides initially developed by Shell and Bayer and largely responsible for the beepocalypse — on its agricultural crops.

The EU understands the scientific link between systemic neonicotinoid insecticides and the rapid decline of pollinators and pollinator health. That is no longer the question. It’s now purely a question of political will.

America, then, must act fast if we want to save our bees, our food and our economic productivity.

Read the Full Commentary Here.