Tuesday 29 March 2016

Bees and the Royal Family

Bees contribute more to British economy than Royal Family

Bees contribute £651 million to the UK economy a year, £150 million more than the Royal Family brings in through tourism.

Bees are worth more to the British economy than the Royal family claim researchers


Bees contribute more to the Britain’s economy than the monarchy, new figures show.

Researchers at the University of Reading estimated the overall value of the pollinators by examining how heavily food crops rely on bees to grow, and how much the sale of these crops contribute to the UK economy.
They found that bees contribute £651 million to the UK economy a year,£150 million more than the Royal Family brings in through tourism.

The figures show that their overall economic value has increased from £220 million in 1996 to £651 million in 2012 - an increase of 191 per cent.
The research also found that 85 per cent of the UK’s apple crop and 45 per cent of the strawberry crop relies on bees to grow. Alone those two crops brought in £200 million to Britain in 2012.
The government is currently reviewing whether to lift a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides which farmers are currently prohibited from using over fear it is causing colony decline.













Bees contribute £651 million to the UK economy
More than 364,000 people have signed a petition organised by 38 Degrees calling for Environment Minister Liz Trust to veto farmers’ requests to use the pesticides on oilseed rape this summer.
38 Degrees campaigner Megan Bentall said: "These figures show that any decline in our bee population would rip through our rural economy.
“Hundreds of thousands of us are asking why the government is even considering allowing harmful pesticides back on British fields. We're calling for Environment Minister Liz Truss and the government to keep the ban on bee-killing pesticides, with no exceptions.
“If we want future generations to be able to eat home-grown strawberries and Bramley apples, we have to keep bee-killing pesticides off our land."

Reading University also discovered that although just two per cent of bee species in Britain do 80 per cent of the crop pollination, more effort should be made to conserve all of Britain’s insects in case they are needed as the climate warms.
Professor Simon Potts, director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER) at the University of Reading, said: “The few bee species that currently pollinate our crops are unlikely to be the same types we will need in the future.
“It is critical to protect a wide range of bees and other insects now so that, as Britain’s climate, environment and crop varieties change, we can call on the pollinating species which are best suited to the task.
“We can’t just rely on our current starting line-up of pollinators. We need a large and diverse group of species on the substitutes’ bench, ready to join the game as soon as they are needed, if we are to ensure food production remains stable.”
Honeybee colonies have slumped in the UK from 250,000 in the 1950s to fewer than 100,000 today. Many British apple crops, for example, which previously relied on honeybees, are now almost exclusively pollinated by a handful of wild bee species.
 By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor.


No comments:

Post a Comment