Bee-friendly orchards.
The California almond community launched a five-point Pollinator Protection Plan in 2020 outlining initiatives that further bolster pollinator health. Created and funded by ABC, as a result, the Bee+ Scholarship programme provides grants to farmers helping to offset costs associated with planting blooming cover crops, an important source of supplemental nutrition for honey bees and habitat for all pollinators.
Working with Project Apis m., international nonprofit the Pollinator Partnership and others, the Almond Board encourages almond farmers to plant pollinator habitat near or within their orchards as additional food sources for honey bees before and after almond bloom. These blooming cover crops support honey bee health and provide food sources for native pollinators. What’s more, they can also improve carbon sequestration, soil health, water infiltration and more.
Continued in 2021, ABC distributed another 100 farmer scholarships offsetting the cost of wildflower seeds through Project Apis m.’s Seeds for Bees programme and Bee Friendly Farming certification through the Pollinator Partnership. In total this has enabled 200 farms to improve local habitats and biodiversity.
Since its inception in 2013, Seeds for Bees has helped almond farmers add pollinator habitat to more than 95,000 acres of almond orchards.3
Another component of the Bee+ Scholarship encourages farmer participation in the Pollinator Partnership’s Bee Friendly Farming programme. To date, 110,000 acres of almonds have been Bee Friendly certified, for providing diverse forage and habitat for pollinators. This represents 85% of all Bee-Friendly certified US farms.