Photo by Rastko Belic | Dreamstime.com
Honey Bee
Local organizations are partnering with the federal and provincial governments to develop innovative ways to save pollinators and combat food waste in British Columbia.
While honeybees play a key role in agriculture, various diseases and pests have threatened Canada’s honeybee population in recent decades. In a previous project, the University of British Columbia (UBC) developed a tool to identify and breed bees with enhanced resistance to disease. Building upon its earlier work, UBC has initiated a new project to develop a probiotic treatment to control disease. The practical knowledge from this research will give beekeepers better tools to treat and monitor hive health, strengthening the honeybee population further.
Another project by Vancouver-based network FoodMesh will help reduce the amount of useable food making its way to the landfill each year.
FoodMesh matches demand and supply more efficiently to reduce food wasted along the supply chain. The network consists of investors, businesses, growers, processors and charity organizations working with the shared goal of reducing the amount of usable food ending up in landfills each year. This social enterprise will better connect BC producers to new economic prospects by including access to animal feed and new markets for unsold food products.
The UBC and FoodMesh projects highlight a small sample of the 20 innovative ideas that BC-based organizations are working on to build a more sustainable future, with nearly $1.5 million in funding from the Canada-British Columbia Agri-Innovation Program under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
“It’s always amazing, but never surprising, to see the innovative work that organizations are doing to create a more sustainable future,” said Lana Popham, BC’s Minister of Agriculture. “The work that UBC and FoodMesh are doing reflects the spirit of the Canada-BC agri-innovation program to enhance competitiveness, sustainability, productivity and resiliency.”
