Bee-friendly orchards.
Working with Project Apis m., Pollinator Partnership and others, the Almond Board encourages almond farmers to plant pollinator habitat near or within their orchards as additional food sources for honey bees before and after almond bloom. These blooming cover crops support honey bee health and provide food sources for native pollinators. What’s more, they can also improve carbon sequestration, soil health, water infiltration and more.
Continued in 2021, ABC distributed another 100 farmer scholarships offsetting the cost of wildflower seeds through Project Apis m.’s Seeds for Bees program and Bee Friendly Farming certification through the Pollinator Partnership. In total this has enabled 200 farms to improve local habitats and biodiversity.
Since its inception in 2013, Seeds for Bees has helped almond farmers add pollinator habitat to more than 95,000 acres of almond orchards.6
Another component of the Bee+ Scholarship encourages farmer participation in Pollinator Partnership’s Bee Friendly Farming program. To date, 110,000 acres of almonds have been Bee Friendly certified, meaning farmers are actively protecting pollinator populations by implementing positive, incremental changes on-farm.