Green Options

Without much of a fanfare, the British government has launched an enquiry that aims to secure the future of UK food until 2050. It’s a committee process, led by Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and it will explore how well equipped Britain is to contribute to feeding a global population of 9 billion in forty years.

Britain’s government has been warned that the country will enter into an “agricultural disaster” unless more money is put towards discovering what is killing the country’s bees.

Protesters from the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), dressed in traditional, white beekeeper suits, delivered a petition signed by more than 140,000 people to Downing Street today, calling for £8 million funding research into causes of the bee decline.

Over the past 12 months, one in three of Britain’s honey bee colonies – amounting to nearly two billion bees, have been lost.  These losses are the greatest yet for the UK.  The causes of the massive die-off are unclear, and the apiarists fear there is nothing to prevent a similar devastation in the year to come.  The beekeepers claim that the Government is doing nothing to prevent it from happening.