RDE 388 - Pesticides in honey

The honey project is currently the only national (and multi-year) data set on environmental exposure of pollinators to pesticides. It has potential to form a key part of any post authorisation monitoring programme in the UK and is intended to be used to measure progress through the H4 programme and within the UK National Action Plan for the sustainable use of pesticides. To achieve this, further development is needed to ensure a suitable metric (or suite of metrics) are available to measure both spatial and temporal trends in pesticide exposure and risk. We also need to think about how we can maximise value from this data (e.g., how this work could feed into the regulatory process and how we could start to link exposure to effects). This thinking forms the core purpose of this project.

This contract was awarded by Defra.