CfR.3/2018/1 What do we currently know about the impacts of pesticide and fertiliser use in farmland on the effectiveness of adjacent pollinator conservation measures such as flower strips and hedgerows, and what additional research is needed?

EKLIPSE has published the report, annexes (online appendix III, online appendix IV) and policy brief on conservation actions and their impacts on pollinators conservation: What do we currently know about the impacts of pesticide and fertiliser use on the effectiveness of the adjacent pollinator conservation measures such as flower strips and hedgerows, and what additional research is needed?

This report is the outcome of a request from Pollinis, a European NGO based in France, which campaigns for the protection and conservation of pollinators, notably bees, and was developed by a group of invited knowledge-holders that joined the expert working group (EWG).

Pollinators Expert Working Group (preparatory phase & workshop):

- Daniele Alberoni, University of Bologna

- Anne Alix, Corteva Agrisciences

- Anke Dietzsch, Julius Kuehn-Institute (JKI)

- Monica Garcia, European Commission

- André Krahner, Julius Kühn-Institute (JKI)

- Stefan Kroder, ADAMA

- Sara Leonhardt, Technical University of Munich

- Veerle Mommaerts, Bayer

- Jeffery Pettis, Pettis and Assoc LLC

- Noa Simon Delso, CARI - Beekeeping Center for Research and Information

- Casper van der Kooi, University of Groningen

- Adam Vanbergen, Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA)

- Vasileios Vasileiadis, Syngenta Crop Protection AG

- Sara Villa, University of Milano Bicocca

- Penelope Whitehorn, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

- Thomas Wood, Université de Mons

- Benjamin Woodcock, Center For Ecology & Hydrology

More information about the Pollinis EWG can be found here.

 

Also, Nibedita Mukherjee joined this group to support the knowledge synthesis process as a research assistant.

The KCB Focal point for this request is Lynn Dick, and the deputy KCB focal point is Flore Jeanmart. Estelle Balian supported the group facilitating the workshop and online meetings. Juliette Young and Karla Locher are the Secretariat Focal Point.

 

Experts who contributed to the discussions prior to the workshop:

- Raine Nigel, University of Guelph

- Ana Sançana, LOUSÃMEL - Beekeepers Portuguese Cooperative

 

Details from the process

A first meeting took place in January 2019 between the requester and EKLIPSE. The request was scoped with the requester until May 2019. Based on this scoping, a new question was formulated as

"What are the impacts of pesticide and fertiliser use in farmland on the effectiveness of adjacent pollinator conservation measures such as flower strips and hedgerows?"

A Call for Knowledge was carried out in June 2019. To see the contributions to the KNOCK Forum discussions, please click here.

Based on the scoping process and the Call for Knowledge, a Document of Work was compiled and can be accessed here. Based on this DoW, the Knowledge Coordination Body gave its approval for the request to go to the next stage.

Since then, a methodological protocol was developed, went out for review in August 2019 and finalised here.

The method selected to answer the request was the Join Fact Finding Approach (JFF) but restricted to its first stage on the identification of research priorities. This method includes a multi-stakeholder consultation as a first step involving representatives from all perspectives and focused on identifying research priorities. To follow this process, an open call for experts was launched in October 2019 to invite the relevant actors (including experts and non-experts, NGOs, private sectors, policy, etc.). From a total of 42 applications, 19 experts were selected to constitute the Expert working group (EWG), all of them with a broad range of expertise as well as EU-wide geographical and gender representation.

The second step of this process was a one and a half-day workshop on the 9th and 10th of January 2020 in Brussels. In this workshop, the selected actors (EGW) discussed the current evidence and available data, aiming at identifying knowledge gaps related to the impacts of pollinators, recognising and prioritising critical research needs, and also providing potential policy recommendations based on key consensual finding based on the available evidence.