North Dakota farmers, landowners, and beekeepers are meeting in Bismarck to discuss ideas of how to best protect honeybees.
Doug Goehring is North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner. He is also the moderator of the meeting.
Goehring said the discussion of how to best protect honeybees has drastically increased in the last year and half at the state and national levels.
Goehring said the goal of the meeting is to get an idea of how to provide a balanced approach to minimize negative impacts on beekeepers, agriculture and the general public.
“We’re very cognizant of colony collapse disorder. It’s not one specific thing that is causing colony collapse disorder; we could be talking about nutrition, stress, disease, parasites, and pesticides,” Goehring said. “Too often there is too much focus on one particular area.”
Goehring said landowners and farmers need to work together to protect the honeybees.
“Landowners have the land, agriculture is a part of our economy: it’s part of feeding the world, it’s part of feeding this country. We need to understand that bees play a role in that too,” Goehring said.
Goehring said the North Dakota Department of Agriculture will take the information and ideas from the meeting and draft a state pollinator protection plan.
North Dakota is the nation’s leading honey-producing state.