White House Announces Plan to Save the Honeybees

The White House has officially announced its plan to save the honeybees.

The initiative, which was unveiled Tuesday, will use funding to strengthen and increase pollinator habitats in core locations. For example, the number of acres in the Conservation Reserve Program that are focused on pollinator health will be doubled. Funding will also be used on research to understand the effects of losing pollinators as well as the causes of the depletion.

"By expanding the conversation through enhanced public education and outreach, as well as strongly built public/private partnerships, the Strategy seeks to engage all segments of our society so that, working together, we can take meaningful and important steps to reverse pollinator declines," Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said.

Over the past years, the population of honeybees has drastically declined. A recently published study last week found that beekeepers have lost more than 40 percent of honeybee colonies. If nothing were to be done, the honeybees could disappear, which would threaten the nations' environment and agricultural production.

According to the White House, "Honey bees enable the production of at least 90 commercially grown crops in North America. Globally, 87 of the leading 115 food crops evaluated are dependent on animal pollinators, contributing 35% of global food production."

For more information on how honeybees affect our environment and what the government is trying to do to save them, visit Whitehouse.gov.

To read the plan, titled "National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honeybees and other Pollinators," click here.