BILL ANALYSIS �
AJR 29
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Date of Hearing: August 22, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
Cathleen Galgiani, Chair
AJR 29 (Allen) - As Amended: August 6, 2012
SUBJECT : Pollinators.
SUMMARY : Memorializes the United Stated Department of
Agriculture (USDA), United States Environmental Protection
Agency (USEPA), California Department of Food and Agriculture
(CDFA), and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation
(DPR), to officially recognize the importance of pollinators to
the food supply and the environment, declares the urgency of
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and promotes a healthy
environment for pollinators. Specifically, this bill :
1)States bees and other pollinators are essential to the
majority of flowering plants and to the production of over 130
food crops.
2)States farmers and growers depend on pollinators for seed
production.
3)States honeybees are the main pollinators we depend on, but
native pollinators are also essential.
4)Lists a variety of California crops that depend on honeybees
and declares that poor pollination leads to poor fruit
development.
5)Declares that one in three bites of food we eat is dependent
on bees' pollination.
6)States that in 2006, bees in the United States (US) started
disappearing in large numbers and was labeled CCD.
7)Declares that many interacting causes, such as pathogens,
habitat loss and pesticides, are likely contributors to CCD.
8)Declares that, since 2006, commercial beekeepers report annual
losses higher than normal numbers.
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9)States bees are a keystone indicator species and their decline
suggests broader environmental degradation, and that a
majority of biologists believe that bee population decline and
the impact on biodiversity is a greater threat than climate
change.
10)Resolves that the California Legislature urge USDA, USEPA,
CDFA and DPR to officially recognize the critical importance
of pollinators to our food supply and to our environment.
11)Resolves that the California Legislature urge USDA, USEPA,
CDFA and DPR to declare the urgency of Colony Collapse
Disorder, as well as for further identifying the reasons
underlying Colony Collapse Disorder
12)Resolves that the California Legislature urge USDA, USEPA,
CDFA and DPR to promote healthy environments for all
pollinators through existing and new funding sources.
13)Directs the Clerk of the Assembly to send copies of this
resolution to the Governor, Secretary of the Senate, and the
author for distribution.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS : Bee pollination is responsible for $15 to $20 billion
in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as
almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables. About
one mouthful in three in our diet, directly or indirectly,
benefits from honey bee pollination. While there are native
pollinators, honey bees are more prolific and the easiest to
manage for the large scale pollination that US agriculture
requires. In California, the almond crop uses approximately 1.3
million colonies of bees, roughly half of all honey bees in the
US.
The number of managed honey bee colonies has dropped from five
million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million today. At the same
time, the need for hives to supply pollination service has
risen. Bee colonies are trucked farther and more often than in
the past.
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Bee colony health has been declining since the 1980s. The
spread into the United States of varroa and tracheal mites, in
particular, created major new stresses on honey bees. Other
stressors include habitat loss, lack of genetic diversity and
pesticides.
Beginning in October 2006, some beekeepers began reporting
losses of 30-90% of their hives. While colony losses are not
unexpected during winter weather, the magnitude of loss suffered
by some beekeepers was highly unusual. This phenomenon has been
termed CCD. The main symptom of CCD is a hive that includes all
of the following: 1) no, or a low number, of adult honey bees
present in the hive; 2) a live queen in the hive; and, 3) no
dead honey bees in the hive. Often there is still honey in the
hive and immature bees are present.
USDA formed a CCD steering committee in 2007 to examine the many
factors that have led to CCD. According to a USDA 2011 report
on CCD, the CCD Steering Committee is assisting the development
of science-based best management strategies that use current
research results associated with CCD incidence and pollinator
decline in general. As part of these efforts, the CCD Steering
Committee member agencies are working together to examine ways
to mitigate impacts on pollinator health. This effort is
coordinated with different federal partners (USDA, the
Department of the Interior, and USEPA), states, and stakeholders
to look for workable solutions to CCD.
RELATED LEGISLATION :
SR 35 (Leno) of 2010 urged the Governor to: 1) request USEPA to
require identification of hazardous inert ingredients as soon as
possible, ultimately leading to the disclosure of all inert
ingredients, the disclosure of a particular ingredient that
would not cause competitive harm, and 2) continue to support the
public's right to know every ingredient in pesticide products.
This resolution was adopted by the Senate.
HR 23 (Monning) of 2010 requested that USEPA act to protect
public health and the environment by requiring the disclosure of
inert ingredients in pesticide products. This resolution was
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adopted by the Assembly.
ACR 117 (Laird) of 2008 would have memorialized CDFA, DPR, the
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and any other
applicable state departments and agencies involved in the light
brown apple moth (LBAM) eradication effort, of the need to
address the unresolved health, scientific, and efficacy issues
concerning the 2007 LBAM eradication effort. This resolution
was held in the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
SJR 49 (Ortiz), Res. Chapter 137, Statutes of 2002, memorialized
the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), members of Congress, the US Secretary for Health and
Human Services, and the President, to seek release to the
California Department of Health Services, specific data from the
1999 and 2002 CDC's "National Report on Human Exposure to
Environmental Chemicals."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California State Grange
Community Alliance with Family Farmers
Cornucopia Institute
EcoFarm
Organic Consumers Fund
Pesticide Action Network, North America
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Victor Francovich / AGRI. / (916)
319-2084