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Your source for the latest news at Bee Vectoring Technologies.
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June 19, 2020
Sustainable agriculture is more essential than ever: bee vectoring and biologicals help feed the growing world population
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all in many different ways, but it has also taught us that it’s more important than ever to keep our food producers strong and productive, while adopting sustainable agriculture practices that will feed the population while reducing climate change. And that’s exactly what we at BVT are doing.
BVT’s business, which includes a global market opportunity, experienced management team, extensive patent portfolio and strong industry relationships with partners and growers, is uniquely poised to help reshape our food production systems for the better as we slowly re-emerge from the pandemic. If you haven’t done so already, I would like to invite you to listen to my webcast presentation and fireside chat at the recent Lytham Partners Virtual Investor Conference or video interview with Crux Investor for more extensive information on BVT.
New EU Farm to Fork Strategy promotes a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system
The European Commission just published a new Farm to Fork Strategy which among other things calls for a 50% reduction in pesticides in the next 10 years. At BVT, we are extremely pleased to see this initiative as sustainable agriculture is at the heart of our natural precision agriculture system – which delivers our biological pesticide alternative CR-7 directly to crop blooms via commercially-reared bees. This means growers use a fraction of the crop protection product required with traditional spray applications. Water consumption and use of fossil fuels is also significantly reduced.
Bees are essential to $3 Trillion in produce sold each year
We continue to be as busy as…well, you know…as we progress through the spring and summer growing seasons.
Speaking of bees, it can be hard to fathom just how important they are to agriculture, and to our very survival. Did you know bees are essential to over 70% of everything that we eat? That they’re used to pollinate 99% of greenhouses? Of the world’s 115 most important crops, 87 require pollination to produce fruits, nuts and seeds. That’s a THIRD of the $3 trillion in produce sold each year.
The United Nations recently celebrated World Bee Day on May 20th. This special day helps raise awareness of the importance of these pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.
At BVT, we understand the incredible global implications of the pollination process, and are fully committed to preserving bee health and vitality.
Bumble bee…honey bee…what’s the difference?
We often get asked why we use two different types of bees, and the short answer is…they’re both important pollinators. Here’s the long answer: they are the two types of commercially-reared bees that are most commonly used for commercial crop pollination. Bumble bees are bigger, with greater carrying capacity. They fly better in cold or damp weather, and are often used on crops grown in green houses. About 300 bumble bees lives in each hive. Honey bees, on the other hand, have much larger hives (20,000 bees per hive is typical) and can cover more acres per hive, which is ideal for large-acre outdoor crops like almonds, apples and sunflowers.
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The BVT system uses both bumble and honey bees to ensure we cover all 2.5 million commercial bee hives in the US and 91 million worldwide. Leveraging both extends our market reach to crops in all markets, which means we can serve 100% of the bee vectoring market for flowering crops.
For more interesting info about bees, visit our Bee Facts page.
Breaking down the multibillion-dollar biologicals market
I recently participated in an industry discussion on the growing biologicals market, hosted by Stockhouse Media. I spoke alongside Keith Jones, Executive Director of the Biological Products Industry Alliance and Mark Trimmer, Managing Director of Dunham Trimmer. We talked about how the biologicals market has been quietly building over the last few years. From billion-dollar merger and acquisition deals to a steady presence in mainstream news, the sector is on-track to becoming a major player in the global agricultural market.
Watch the industry panel webcast to learn about the future of agriculture, new trends and where the biologicals market is heading.
It’s an exciting time to be a part of the BVT community.
If you haven’t done so already, get the latest updates by signing up for the BVT newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Last but not least, we’d like to send a very big thank you to all the healthcare and emergency workers and folks in service industries. Their dedication is so important – and appreciated. And a special thanks to those keeping our supply chains running, and to all the farmers and growers out there. These are the people who are getting food and supplies to us and ensuring everyone stays safe and healthy. They make a huge difference to all of us!
Sincerely,
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