World Bee Day 2020

FAO Director-General Opening Statement

20 May 2020

15.00 – 16.30

First of all, I would like to congratulate all of you on the World Bee Day. Because it’s a special day for the bee lovers, bee beneficiaries and bee contributors.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear friends of bees and honey lovers and fans of biodiversity,

As you may know my background, I was a plant breeder, so we sincerely appreciated the bees to help us to get the hybrid seeds for the breeding stocks.

So, we are living in extraordinary times, facing new challenges, but also new opportunities.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are celebrating this World Bee Day, the third one, virtually first, and the bees can feel that, because the bees can really work much harder than before.

We hope this will create a bigger buzz, to reach an even larger and more diverse audience. Yesterday we had a meeting with the American (US) Congress which reached a 15000 registered audience. So especially for this kind of World of International days, as the U.N we are back to the normal, it’s not an old normal, it should be a new normal, and we can use more virtual ways to get more accessible and more listened and more expressive to the public.

On World Bee Day, we celebrate bees and other pollinators. They are fundamental to our lives, to our food and nutrition security, and to our environment and our evolution. Without bees, the Earth would be silent. Really, without bees there is no planet like we are here, now.

It is an occasion to highlight the importance of beekeepers, because the role of traditional knowledge or indigenous knowledge related to bees, and the transfer from beekeepers to bee consumers, and even traditional medicine and the wider variety of products and services thanks to bees.

Bees play a vital role in pollination, and in boosting yield and quality of agricultural crops. When I was governor in the West part of China, northwest, one could use the bees to improve the environment recovery, rehabilitation of forests and grasslands, because they are much more efficient than planted tree by human beings. They are working day and night so they can increase the grass by 40 to 50 percent times, biomass, by bee pollination, rather than by planting trees or grass.

They help improve agricultural production and food security and the environnement.

Bees are essential to our planet’s biodiversity. They play a key role in maintaining the vibrant ecosystems upon which agriculture depends.

And also, close to three-quarters of the world’s crop species depend, at least in part, on bees and other pollinators.

Bees are also an important source of decent jobs and incomes.

Let’s say bee keepers, when I was a child, I was wondering and curious to know the life of beekeepers, from one location to another, from the south to the north side, they are living around the seasons, from spring to summer. When you saw beekeepers, you should know it’s the high season of flowering, so making you optimistic that the spring is to come. In any place, it’s also a good environment because there can have a lot of flowers and pollen which is feed for the bees.

It’s also an importance source for a lot of products and food.

For centuries, beekeeping has contributed to the livelihoods of rural and indigenous communities.

Beekeeping delivers significant social, economic and environmental benefits. It can be carried out with locally available materials and limited resources.

It offers a significant safety net in both rural and urban areas, particularly for landless women, youth, elderly and disabled people, by enhancing their resilience.

It also provides them with income and a nutritious food for their own daily diet, which can also be safely stored for long periods.

The number of urban beekeepers is rising by 20 percent a year. So, I said, the beekeepers, it’s not only jobs or livelihoods, it’s a way of life. It’s a new fashionable lifestyle.

Beekeeping can contribute to community development!

This is why FAO is forging strategic partnerships with key actors in the sector.

These partnerships will support FAO’s work as a facilitator of the International Pollinator Initiative, and our work on bees and beekeeping.

We need to work together, and also build a more inclusive platform.

You know, bees are not only an issue of the agri-food sector, not only an environmental issue, it should bring all the key players from traditional medicine, functional food, environment, desertification and rehabilitation and also for the grass maintenance of sustainable development and so on.

We have to try to explore the potential of the bees and issues surrounding bees. Not only restrict ourselves and our mindset with only the bees and the beekeepers and the honeybees. That’s a very simplified vision because bees are so industrious, there are so many areas of possibilities for us.

And looking at the historical point of view, bees were there long time before the human beings. Bees adapt more quickly to the environment than human beings. So, we even must learn how bees build their houses. That’s a special cubic architecture so there are lot of things we can learn from bees as a smart animal. Even their social structure, how to rationalize their power and different assignments.

Bees, beekeepers and pollinators face many threats of course, and we have to take care of the bees first, and then we can benefit from bees. We have to consider the beekeepers’ challenges and then we keep the beekeepers as a cultural heritage, from generation to generation.

 So, let’s work together – let’s “bee” engaged!

Thank you for your attention.

Happy World Bee Day!

Happy Honey Day, while you enjoy your honey life don’t forget the bees please!!

Thank You.

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