President Barack Obama today announced a government-wide strategy to promote the health of honey bees and other pollinators, which are vital to many crops but that have been declining in numbers in recent years.

“Given the breadth, severity, and persistence of pollinator losses, it is critical to expand federal efforts and take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels," Obama said.

”These steps should include the development of new public-private partnerships and increased citizen engagement.”

Through a memorandum, Obama established a pollinator health task force, to be co-chaired by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy.

The task force, which is to include representatives of other major agencies including Defense and State, will undertake studies and share data on pollinators, including the Monarch butterfly, and the memo orders the agencies to take efforts to increase pollinator habitat on federally controlled lands.

The memorandum also says the EPA shall:

• Assess the effect of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bee and other pollinator health and take action, as appropriate, to protect pollinators;
• Engage state and tribal environmental, agricultural, and wildlife agencies in the development of pollinator protection plans;
• Encourage the incorporation of pollinator protection and habitat planting activities into green infrastructure and superfund projects; and
• Expedite review of registration applications for new products targeting pests harmful to pollinators.

Some environmentalists have called for a ban on neonicotinoids, but the companies that produce the pesticides and some academics have said that the causes of colony collapse disorder are much broader.

Also today, the Agriculture Department announced $8 million in Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) incentives for Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin farmers and ranchers who establish new habitats for declining honey bee populations.

More than half of the commercially managed honey bees are in these five states during the summer, USDA noted.

The announcement comes in addition to $3 million USDA designated to the Midwest states to support bee populations earlier this year through the Natural Resources Conservation Service Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

The honey bee population in the United States has been declining for decades. The number of managed U.S. honey bee colonies has dropped from 6 million in 1947 to just 2.5 million today, USDA said.

The new CRP pollinator initiative is designed to further enhance current CRP land, allowing it to provide better access to nutritious pollinator forage.The program allows for managing or replacing existing vegetation, known as “covers,” with lower cost, high-nutrition seed mixes that can support distinct blooming cycles of plants that benefit pollinators.

Laurie Davies Adams, executive director of the Pollinator Partnership, said in a news release,“This presidential action shows visionary leadership and offers practical measures that will help pollinators now; it is a triumph for people, plants and pollinators.”

Obama’s announcement was made during the group’s celebration of Pollinator Week.

CropLife America, which represents pesticide makers, said it is “pleased that the president recognizes that multiple stressors are responsible for impacting pollinator health, including poor bee nutrition, loss of forage lands, parasites, pathogens and lack of genetic diversity.”

“We support additional research surrounding the interplay of all of these factors, as well as management techniques for controlling harmful pests such as the Varroa mite."

▪ White House — Memorandum Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators
▪ White House — Fact Sheet: The Economic Challenge Posed by Declining Pollinator Populations
▪ USDA Farm Service Agency — FSA Pollinator Information
▪ Pollinator Partnership