Last week, it was reported that this past winter saw the highest honey bee colony losses on record. A few days later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will be suspending its annual tracking of the honey bee population due to a budget...
The news over the past few weeks has been riddled with headlines like “Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’,” “Monarch butterflies are going extinct,” and “The insect apocalypse is here.” If it sounds bad, that’s because it is.You probably know that bees and other...
Last month, the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) published results from their annual survey of managed honey bee colony losses in the United States. With the combination of increased overall pathogen load, poor nutrition, habitat loss and pesticide exposure all contributing to bee declines, the results...
As the Minnesota legislature adjourned last week, I was left with mixed feelings of disappointment and hope for Minnesota pesticide legislation.Going into this legislative session PAN and our allies knew that we would be playing a tough game of defense. What we didn’t expect? While...
After years of strong scientific evidence and even stronger advocacy, this week European officials decided to make a temporary ban on three bee-harming pesticides permanent. This is very, very good news for bees in Europe.The decision reflects years of hard work by our PAN partners...
The Farm Bill debates are moving full steam ahead. Many pieces of the complex federal legislation introduced in the House will clearly be harmful to farmers, rural communities, workers and the environment. This blog is the first in a series from PAN focusing in on...
The last few weeks have seen encouraging momentum around the world in protecting bees and other pollinators from harmful pesticides. As bees are responsible for pollinating one out of every three bites of food we eat — making them key actors in our food system...
As the dust settles on Minnesota’s 2017 legislative session, the push for new pollinator protective policies has mostly wrapped up for the year. The outcome? In a year when many, many issues we care about saw major rollbacks, we managed to win a few small...
As Scott Pruitt takes over as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, it's clearer than ever that our federal decisionmakers won't be stepping up to protect communities — or our food system — from pesticides anytime soon. It's that much more important therefore for state...
Recently, a small crowd gathered in the agriculture building at the Minnesota State Fair. Beekeepers, entomologists, reporters, farmers and pollinator advocates circled around a small podium, waiting for Commissioner of Agriculture Dave Frederickson and Governor Mark Dayton to speak. The crowd wasn't disappointed. In a...