How do you increase awareness of environmental issues and their consequences for the bee population? By telling a positive story with this exceptional insect as the leading lady. And that is precisely what Art Director Iris Rombouts does in the new art book ‘The Poetry of the Bee’, which was published on the 25th of October. Biobest wholeheartedly supports this new publication.
In fact, Biobest made a substantive contribution to the chapter entitled ‘The beauty of pollination’. Rombouts explains that people have been enjoying the delicacy, bee honey, for thousands of years - but it was only in the 18th century that it was discovered that bees play such an essential role in crop fertilisation. Eighty-five percent (85%) of crops suffer losses in production if pollinators are missing. Annually, pollination is worth more than 577 billion dollars, calculates the author.
Besides the honey bee her cousin, the bumblebee, is also a serious pollinator. In greenhouses all over the world, it is the bumblebee that takes on the leading role. And the world has Ronald de Jonghe, the founder of Biobest, to thank for that. As a child, he was fascinated by bumblebees, and by 1987 he had plumbed the depths of the secrets of cultivating these hairy insects. From his passion came his profession. Bumblebees quickly became an indispensable ally in the greenhouse. The valuable work carried out by bumblebees gave growers a significant impetus for cutting back on the use of chemical crop protection products in the greenhouse. The result? Biological crop protection methods are currently the standard in greenhouse cultivation. So, the bumblebee makes an important contribution to increasing the sustainability of food and of the planet.