Why We Should Encourage a Nationwide Planting of Flower Seeds
According to experts British grown apples, strawberries, carrots, and pumpkins could soon be extinct.
That’s a really powerful statement. The Dairy Cooperative Arla, is working alongside invertebrate conservation charity, Buglife to encourage a nationwide planting of flower seeds to try and counteract this issue.
Agricultural and conservation experts have warned of the threat of extinction of some of the UK’s best-loved crops. They are predicting that we are on the brink of a biodiversity crisis because of our dwindling population of pollinators – such as bees, butterflies and bugs.
Did you know that a third of the food we eat every day relies on pollinators? Which are suffering due to habitat fragmentation. Essentially a lack of regular patches of pollinator friendly flowers across the country.
This pollinator network is critical to help bees and other insects to transfer pollen around the nation to effectively pollinate plants and the foods we love.
Many farmers across the UK are tackling this habitat fragmentation by creating pollinator patches on their land. But according to experts, this isn’t enough on its own to address the problem.
Dairy cooperative, Arla, which is owned by 2,300 farmers in the UK, is urging Brits to give up a corner of their back gardens, back yards, balconies, hanging baskets, window boxes or plant pots to help save our pollinators and join BEE ROAD! We joined in with no-mow May last month and saw a huge difference with bees in our front garden, which was full of dandelions! And now we have a border in our back garden left to nature, which has many varieties of wildflowers growing.
The Bee Road aims to create a network of national pollinator pitstops filled with bee-friendly flowers, giving these vital insects places to rest and refuel before they continue to pollinate some of our most important crops.
Paul Hetherington, director at Buglife:
“One out of every three mouthfuls of the food we eat every day depends on pollinators.
“These pollinators are the backbone of our biodiversity and without them there would be no British strawberries, apples, cherries, carrots, pumpkins and so many more of the foods we love, as well as the flowers in our gardens and countryside.
“Urgent action is needed now, or we stand to lose the food and plants that are such an intrinsic part of the British way of life.”
To help support this pollinator patch drive, Arla is giving away 100,000 seed packs to create their very own pit stops.
To find out more about the BEE ROAD, and how Arla farmers around the country are inspiring others visit the Arla website www.arlafoods.co.uk/thebeeroad.
I hope this explains Why We Should Encourage a Nationwide Planting of Flower Seeds, after all we all need food to eat.
