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Pollinator research projects announced as part of pollinator week

The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture has announced $6.8 million will be awarded to promote pollinator health research.

Honeybee Health Coalition Facilitator Julie Shapiro says while there are more than 20,000 bee species worldwide, honeybees are managed pollinators and essential for growing major food crops.  “Beekeepers can manage bees in social colonies that they can then move around the country, in the case of the U.S., to provide pollination services.  Native pollinators are of course really important as well in the work that they do on the ground, but honeybees are the number one managed pollinator.”

Funded projects will research ways to promote pollinator health, reduce honeybee colony losses, and restore pollinator habitats as recent declines in pollinator populations continue.

Among the seven universities receiving funding are Iowa State University of Science and Technology and Michigan State University which both have been granted nearly $1 million for multi-year research projects.

U.S. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue has declared June 19-25 as National Pollinator Week.