Kaptur Announces Federal Initiative To Encourage Pollinator Habitat in Northwest Ohio

TOLEDO (June 5, 2014) -- Honey bees are in trouble in Ohio, and Congresswoman Kaptur wants to help.
Congresswoman Kaptur today announced a new federal initiative to encourage farmers to make suitable habitat available for bees and other pollinators by planting floral forage while reducing the use of pesticides. Kaptur said the initiative will be undertaken by the federal Natural Resources Conversation Service (NRCS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Farmers in 24 Ohio counties will be eligible for assistance in promoting pollinator habitat.

"Honeybees and other pollinators face a triple threat: insecticides, mites and disease," Kaptur said. "The decrease in wildflower habitat simply makes it harder for honey bees to do their job of collecting pollen and growing their colonies.”

Kaptur said pollinators help produce for one out of every three bites of food we eat. Ohio farmers, she said, rely on bees to pollinate more than 70 crops, but the state's 4,390 registered beekeepers lost 50-80 percent of the bees from their 37,000 honeybee colonies last winter, an increase from the 30 to 60 percent loss the prior year.

In addition, commercial honey bee hives bring a large percentage of their hives to Ohio and other Midwest states for the bees to rest and feed upon quality forage in preparation for overwintering.

Agricultural producers with cropland, pastureland, forestland and farmsteads in the following counties might be eligible for the program: Allen, Ashtabula, Auglaize, Cuyahoga, Defiance, Erie, Fulton, Hancock, Hardin, Henry, Lake, Lucas, Lorain, Mercer, Ottawa, Paulding, Sandusky, Seneca, Shelby, Van Wert, Williams, Wood, and Wyandot.
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