Comvita shows it loves its bees

Mānuka honey company Comvita is supporting social enterprise For the Love of Bees to help it expand its urban farming and education operations countrywide.

Started in 2016, For the Love of Bees is a community of regenerative organic urban farmers who work with local beekeepers to ensure their environment is healthy and free from pesticides and other threats, and cultivate food for local people.

They also provide accessible educational experiences.

It has a 310 square metre model farm in Symonds St, Auckland, which doubles as a learning centre.

It has been piloting regenerative organic practices, including no-till systems and poly cropping, that are safe for bees, says trustee Sarah Smuts-Kennedy.

It employed two fulltime urban farmers and since last year had trained 86 more and generated 45 projects around the country.

Three years ago it started the Urban Farmers Alliance through its Earthworks programme.

The programme teaches how soil biology interacts with chemistry and how to get the most profitable per-square-metre horticultural operation. SmutsKennedy said there had been very little focus on the regenerative practices within horticulture, which was ‘‘much dirtier’’ than dairying or pastoral farming, because of the use of pesticides, insecticides, fertiliser, tilling, and leaving land bare.

For the Love of Bees was trying to bring awareness to this and pilot and test new horticultural systems to help build healthy soil and sequester carbon.

‘‘Our urban farms are oriented around climate change mitigation, food security and creating hyper-local economies,’’ she said.

The support from Comvita had come at a perfect time, given the difficulty Covid-19 had created for non-profits.

The organisation’s organic, regenerative soil and biodiversity focused approach didn’t quite fit into Government initiatives like Green Jobs for Nature or anything that the Ministry for Primary Industries or Ministry for the Environment were doing, she said. ‘‘We started talking to Comvita in December last year,’’ Smuts-Kennedy said. ‘‘It has taken a year to finalise the contract, work out what the scope of works are for the following year and start to talk about our five and potentially 10-year plan.

‘‘This means we won’t have to spend 80 per cent of our time chasing funding.’’

The partnership would give the organisation a ‘‘stabilising force’’, that would allow it to focus on developing and delivering its projects and scaling operations across the country.

Under the new partnership, the first tranche of activity will include the establishment of Comvita-led beekeeping operations across three existing For the Love of Bees sites in Auckland.

Ongoing collaboration with local beekeepers will ensure bee health in those communities.

Comvita group chief executive David Banfield said it aimed to create a movement that enabled bees and people to thrive in harmony.

The partnership between the two would be an important step to bring that to life.

With bee populations under threat in New Zealand from habitat loss, pesticides and disease, Comvita had a role to play as a leader in the mānuka honey sector, he said.

Comvita aimed to create a movement that enabled bees and people to thrive in harmony.

David Banfield, Comvita group chief executive