Bee Understanding: Job Swap & Documentary Short-films
Honey bee health and agriculture are intrinsically linked. One in three bites of food you put in your mouth and over $15 billion in American agriculture relies on pollination. But modern agriculture is a highly specialized system. Gaps can open up between specialists and into one of the gaps has fallen the little honey bee. Improving honey bee health and safeguarding the food supply will take intensive cooperation across the food value chain. That’s why we’ve created The Bee Understanding Project, an incubated project of the Honey Bee Health Coalition.
Through Bee Understanding, farmers and beekeepers, crop advisors and entomologists, pest control applicators and regulators will switch jobs for a day and walk a mile in the other guys’ boots to see this problem from the ground level and develop solutions together. And we want to give you a front row seat. In addition to swapping jobs, we’re capturing everything in a series of documentary short films that we will make available to you and work to embed in continuing education programs throughout the food chain.
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Meet our First Job Swappers!
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What You Can Do
We need your help. Our first job swap will take place in April.
Beekeepers, entomologists, and crop advisors will trade places with a corn
grower and plant corn on his production farm in North Dakota. That same group
will then go to Texas and be beekeepers for a day working on a large commercial
beekeeping operation. We need to raise an additional $160,000 to take this show
on the road and bring job swaps to soybean farmers, almond growers, and other
vegetable and fruit growers. We also need to involve beekeepers from
California, Idaho, Florida, and all around the country, not to mention more
entomologists, conservationists, regulators, and even members of the general
public like you.
This Indiegogo
campaign is our first step towards achieving that goal. Proceeds of this
campaign will go to the Pollinator Stewardship Council for the specific purpose
of creating job swaps and the corresponding series of short documentary films.
Please make your deductible donation today and help accelerate cooperation on improving the health of
the honey bee!
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About Us
The Partners
Bee Understanding is an incubated project of the Honey Bee Health Coalition
The mission of the Honey Bee Health Coalition is to collaboratively implement solutions that will help to achieve a healthy population of honey bees while also supporting healthy populations of native and managed pollinators in the context of productive agricultural systems and thriving ecosystems.
Learn more about the Honey Bee Health Coalition!
The Pollinator Stewardship Council is Our Non-Profit Funding Partner
The mission of the Pollinator Stewardship Council is to defend managed and native pollinators vital to a sustainable and affordable food supply from the adverse impact of pesticides.
Film Producers
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CollaborateUp
CollaborateUp advises businesses, governments, and non-profits on how to work together to solve big problems. On behalf of our clients, we make strategic introductions, translate the needs of businesses to NGOs and vice-versa, and structure outcome-oriented partnerships that amplify impact and get results faster at lower cost.
CollaborateUp team members working on Bee Understanding:
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Richard Crespin, CEO
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Emily Olsen-Harbich, Project Manager
Learn more about CollaborateUp!
Our Filmmakers:
Citygate Films is an award-winning nonfiction film company with offices in NY and DC. They produce independent feature films about humanitarian, social justice, healthcare, and spiritual topics. They are true believers in their motto, "Good stories spark change." Citygate channels their story-telling skills to create short films for a variety of clients with compelling missions or brand stories.
A special thanks to our donors:
Jessica Miller, Honeybee Dinner
Mark & Cathy Lee, Queen Bee
James Laird, Worker Bee
Lisa Laird, Worker Bee
Michael Romano, Worker Bee
moniclarelee, Worker Bee
Stay tuned for further information on the job swappers, memorable quotes, and other updates. You can also check our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop as this project develops!
The Bee Understanding Project is an incubated project of the Honey Bee Health Coalition, with project partners CollaborateUp and Pollinator Stewardship Council. Our project is not to be confused with
BeeUnderstanding.org.
