Colony Collapse Disorder and the Funding Problem
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Bees are worth a lot of money. How much? In terms of their contribution to the world food supply, about $215 billion, by some estimates. That’s a lot of cabbage.
The amount needed to study Colony Collapse Disorder (you know—that thing that’s killing all those bees?) is chump change in comparison.
Read on:
One branch of the USDA has finally let go of some of the $1.4 million they are supposed to distribute to researchers for the study of Colony Collapse Disorder. They are still sitting on some of it though, I hear, not because they haven’t got it but some mid level manager hasn’t got around to doing the paper work. It’s been more than a month … fiddling while Rome burns, and bees die.
But this $1.4 million is still a drop in the bucket for what’s needed, and while the industry has been generous in volunteering funds and spending money it was supposed to spend on other things, it’s a small industry and the well isn’t infinitely deep.
And, it seems, that if the farm bill money is to be released it will only be so if there is pressure from the people who pay the bills … that would be you, by the way. Below is only a partial list of what is desperately needed to begin or continue studies from only one of the groups in this arena. Others still need funds too, and they are waiting for the release of these funds, or at least making them available for competitive grants.
1. Backlog
There are currently just over 4,000 samples waiting to be analyzed for pathogens and pesticides that have been collected from 8 different studies, surveys and volunteered samples sent in by beekeepers. It’ll cost a total of $250,000 to do this.
2. Pesticides
Researchers still need to conduct toxicity tests of individual pesticides to discover their relationship with CCD, if any, and determine the sub-lethal effects of pesticides and selected combinations of pesticides on bees and other pollinators. And an important study is to determine if pesticides, when combined with other problems, like viruses are responsible for, or aid in causing CCD.
Available funding for this activity
So far donations for these tests has been substantial, totaling just over $400,000, though a part of this comes from that $1.4 million grant. Still needed just to conduct these tests is the $155,000 for additional people to actually do the research.Another factor is that investigating pesticides requires expensive equipment, highly trained personnel and exacting standards to meet FDA/EPA compliance, and available labs are severely limited. Plus, there’s hardly anywhere that can actually teach grad students to do these tests, so that, too has to be set up.
Funding required
Equip an MS facility with the appropriate hardware, software and toxic substance libraries for reference; salary for a qualified GLP technician for 4 years: $1,500,000
