Up to £10 million is to be invested to help to identify the main threats to bees and other insect pollinators, under a major project announced this week by DEFRA.

Some of the UK’s major research funders have joined together to launch the research programme, to discover why the number of pollinators has been declining steadily in recent years. The number of bees in the UK alone has fallen by 10-15 per cent over the last two years.

The biggest challenge will be to develop a better understanding of the complex relationships between biological and environmental factors that affect the health and lifespan of pollinators.

The funding will be made available to research teams across the UK under the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership, the major initiative by UK funders to help the UK respond effectively to changes to our environment. This is a joint initiative from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Defra, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government.

Environment secretary Hilary Benn said: “I announced in January that DEFRA would put an extra £2m into research funding, and I am delighted our partners have agreed to boost this to up to £10m. This funding will give some of Britain’s world-class researchers the chance to identify the causes of the decline we are seeing in bee numbers, and that will help us to take the right action to help.”

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) welcomed the move, but insisted it is essential the £10m fund is not spent - and ultimately wasted on - well-intentioned research into pollinating insects that are eventually shown to be of relatively little importance in terms of crop pollination.

Director of policy Martin Haworth said: “The industry has been asking government and other funding bodies for many months to increase the level of funding for research into the problems affecting honeybee colonies. The new funding announced today is a positive move and has come about as a direct result of this lobbying and the increased awareness of the problems facing honeybees.

“The magnitude of these problems has always been set in the context of the £200m annual value of UK crop pollination provided by honey bees. It follows that the logical approach to using this new funding is to confirm the contribution of honey bees and any other key pollinating insects to crop production, and then to allocate the funding accordingly to address the actual problems faced by the key pollinators.

“Meanwhile, considering the accepted importance of honey bees to crop production, and the severity of the immediate health problems facing honey bees, a significant proportion of this funding needs to be allocated straight away to tackling honey bee decline.

“The NFU will continue to work the Bee Farmers’ Association, and with other bee industry partners, to ensure this extra funding is used to tackle the most important issues facing honey bees and other key crop pollinators.”

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