Local Group of Friends of the Earth 

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The Bee Cause

 

Why is Guildford and Waverley Friends of the Earth campaigning on insecticides impacting on bees and other pollinators?

Because we need them and they are in trouble

They are essential to our food supply, economy and quality of life:

  • they pollinate 75% of our most vital crops and favourite foods. Without bees and other insects we’d also have 20% less vitamin C, 41% less vitamin A and 9% less calcium.
  • wthout them it would cost UK farmers £1.8 billion a year to pollinate our crops. That’s more than it costs farmers to produce all the milk consumed in the UK every year.
  • they are essential to our gardens, parks and countryside. Bees and other insects help pollinate over 75% of our plants, which in turn are vital to our insects, birds and animals.

Without bees and other insect pollinators, our diets would be depressingly poor. No raspberries, apples, strawberries, peas, beans, courgettes, melons, tomatoes, blueberries, etc.

So it is worrying that bee numbers in Britain have fallen dramatically in recent years. Three bumblebee species are already extinct.

There has been considerable press coverage over the last two years about the decline of honeybees and bumblebees.

Beekeepers and scientists suspect that the growing use of a class of insecticide called Neonicotinoids may be partly to blame.

Neonicotinoids are systemic insecticides routinely used in modern farming to help protect crops such as oilseed rape, maize, sugarbeet, sunflowers and potatoes from sap sucking insects like aphids. They act on an insect’s nervous system causing overstimulation, paralysis and death – in simple terms they are a nerve agent.

So please join The Bee Cause and  help save Britain’s bees.The Bee Cause Logo