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Mass honeybee decline could impact the future of production agriculture

A Michigan-based veterinarian says a large decline in U.S. honeybee populations over the last year could impact the viability of food production.

Terry Ryan Kane says beekeepers nationwide are seeing a 70 to 100% collapse in their colonies. 

“As our bee herd travels around the country, they’re assaulted by different diseases, different habitats, different climate, and different pesticides,” she says. “All of these things are contributing to these losses.”

She tells Brownfield pollinators are essential to food production.

“We can live without chickens and pigs and cows, but we cannot live without our pollinators,” she says. “If we want to have all the cantaloupe, blueberries, coffee, chocolate, melons, peppers, tomatoes, and all of those things, we need pollinators.”

A partnership with Project Apis m., the American Beekeeping Federation, the American Honey Producers Association, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service laboratories are working to find the cause of the mass declines.

Ryan Kane says finding a solution to mass honeybee declines will help strengthen the future of the U.S. food supply. 

AUDIO: Terry Ryan Kane