BEES NEEZ HELP BARNABY JOYCE AND QUICK SMART

Had you been watching 60 MINUTES on Channel 9 a few weeks ago and seen the report on the perils facing bees around the world and to what great extent we rely on them for crop propagation you should be of the opinion that no matter what it takes - governments must act to stop any further decline in their sustainability - full stop and without delay.

Of utmost urgency, we need to have the federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce commission a national review, with the joint and 'bi-partisan where it's applicable' involvement of all his state counterparts, farming lobbies and every horticultural association from across Australia, to examine, scrutinize and identify every single potential negative impact or risk to bees posed by certain pesticides and herbicides commonly used by farmers and plant nurseries.

In particular, such a review needs to target RoundUp and anything else containing GLYSOPHATE, which is well documented to kill bee larvae. Most if not all agrarian lobbies representing the 'mainstream farming fraternity' in Australia to this point in time have remained aloof to the potential impact of RoundUp etc. on bees, choosing instead to blame drought and clearing of eucalyptus forest and other factors for whatever strife bees are in across Australia, in various regions.

No doubt, prolonged drought and the mass destruction of tree types which bees thrive on, like ironbark, box, tea tree and certain gum tree varieties, has diminished the sustainability of beekeeping in Australia.

But to ignore the pesticide/herbicide factor in the plight facing bees is no longer an option for any responsible government or politician. As the 60 MINUTES report highlighted, if we didn't have any bees on the earth one-third of everything you find on a supermarket shelf wouldn't be there. It wouldn't exist.

Without bees, not only would we lose half our fresh produce, but we wouldn't have a big percentage of processed packaged food which somewhere in the ingredients relies on this buzzing insect to make it what it is. Never take bees for granted, it's so easy to do so, fact is we all need them so very badly.