Bees: Conservation

(asked on 27th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding his Department has allocated to encourage farmers to plant more wildflowers to reverse the decline of bees.


Answered by
Thérèse Coffey Portrait
Thérèse Coffey
This question was answered on 2nd April 2019

This is a devolved matter and the below information relates to England only.

Natural England estimates that over £125 million has been allocated to support the sowing of wildflowers across Environmental Stewardship and Countryside Stewardship options, on agreements put in place between 2005 and the end of 2018.

This expenditure on wildflower options, such as flower-rich margins or pollen and nectar mixtures, represents only a small proportion of total expenditure on habitats for bees, which will also benefit from payments for managing existing habitat such as protected sites or hedgerows.

The Government is spending £2.9 billion on agri-environment schemes in England funded through our seven year Rural Development Programme. This funding will support the provision of habitat for bees and other wildlife.

In 2015, Defra introduced the ‘Wild Pollinator and Farm Wildlife Package’ to Countryside Stewardship, to make it easier for farmers to provide flower-rich margins or pollen and nectar plots on fields to support wild pollinators. The package ensures that a minimum of 3% of the farm is converted to habitat for farm wildlife including bees and other pollinators.

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