Bayer CropScience has pledged $100,000 to the North Carolina Department of Transportation to be used for the development of roadside pollinator plantings this spring.

The project will provide approximately 46 new acres of bee-attractant vegetation alongside North Carolina’s roads and highways, such as wildflower beds that promote honey bee population development and support crop pollination.

“This investment is a down payment on the sustainable health of pollinators in North Carolina and a model for how public-private partnerships, like that between Bayer and NCDOT, can benefit the environment and state,” said Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience. “Bayer is dedicated to the establishment of new habitat for honey bees that will allow them to flourish, as they continue to play a critical role in creating sustainable agriculture.”
 
Bayer’s partnership with the NCDOT is the most recent in a series of collaborations that Bayer is forging as part of its recently launched Feed a Bee campaign that has a goal of growing 50 million flowers and providing additional forage acreage for bees in 2015.

Bees help to pollinate one of every three bites of food that we eat, and they need to eat too. Reduced bee habitat has decreased bees’ food options, at a time when a growing world population is putting increased pressure on agriculture (and bees!) to produce. Feed a Bee collaborations will help ensure bees have access to the diverse pollen and nectar sources they need, especially during times when the fruit, nut and vegetable crops that they help to pollinate are not in bloom.