Jennifer Bonnell: ‘We need bees more than they need us’
'By carrying life-giving pollen from plant to plant, they complete the life cycle for an estimated 30 per cent of the food crops we eat, including apples, berries, and almonds,' Bonnell writes in The Hamilton Spectator.
Wilson Fellow Jennifer Bonnell has written a new Opinion column for The Hamilton Spectator that outlines the dire need to preserve and protect Ontario’s bees:
No matter how far the technologies of factory farming and seed-coating insecticides can take us in the quest for cheaper, more abundant crops, we need to remember that it’s domesticated honey bees and their pollinating wild cousins that allow us to enjoy such bounty …
Starting in the spring of 2016, when restrictions on the use of neonicotinoids will come into effect, Ontario will be taking an important step in restoring vital pollinator populations, but there is a long way to go still to reduce harmful farming practices.
Read the full article in Friday’s Hamilton Spectator
Bonnell is an L.R. Wilson Fellow in Canadian History at McMaster, and author of Reclaiming the Don: An Environmental History of Toronto’s Don River Valley. Her current research explores the history of beekeeping and environmental change in the Great Lakes Region.
