For this year’s Valentine’s Day, fairafric will be offering a special bundle: A flower sponsorship from bees and friends plus 6 bars of our superfair organic chocolate. Find out why this is a great opportunity to protect the environment.
Valentine’s Day. In 469, Pope Gelasius established Valentine’s Day as a day of remembrance for St Valentine. Since then, it has been a special day for our consumer society: A day on which people show their beloved ones how much they appreciate and love each other.
There is nothing wrong with giving typical gifts like flowers, but this year we would like to give it a little twist: for Valentine’s Day, we are offering a bundle in our online-shop that includes six bars of our super fair organic chocolate and a flower adoption certificate from bees & friends.
For fairafric, climate protection and sustainable business are among the top priorities, which is why we are also listed as a climate-neutral company. To compensate for our carbon footprint, we invest in sustainable projects in Togo. In addition, only the highest quality ingredients find their way into our products, which is why we work closely with organic-certified suppliers. Especially for agriculture, bees play a very crucial part.
In this article you will find out more about flower sponsorships and why they can have an enormous positive impact on the environment.
Bees and flowers – a very special bond
The Western honeybee is responsible for pollinating about 80 percent of all crops and wild plants. The remaining 20 percent is distributed among bumblebees, wild bees, flies and other insects. Without the work of the bee, yields would decline massively, and humans would consequently have to do without about a third of the crops implemented in their nutrition, especially fruits and vegetables.
A UN committee has analyzed the situation and has concluded that between five and eight percent of global agricultural production depends on pollination. Germany’s economic benefit from this is estimated at around 2.7 billion euros. Crops such as cocoa, vanilla and passion fruit are 100 percent reliant on pollination by bees. In stone and pome fruits, insect pollination increases fruit yield by 40 percent. Furthermore, pollination of crops by bees not only increases yields, but also improves the quality of the fruit.
bees and friends – A family business is fighting bee mortality
A family of farmers in the Bavarian district of Eichstätt decided to contribute a solution-oriented approach to containing bee mortality. For this purpose, they founded the company bees and friends, which offers flower sponsorships to provide native bees with an oasis of various plants.
But why is this even necessary?
The German Beekeepers’ Association estimates that the number of bee colonies has fallen from 2.5 million to 1.4 million within the last 67 years. This is partly due to growing industrial agriculture, and partly to the use of pesticides and the destruction of important habitats. Therefore, it is important to do something against the dying of bees.
Interview with Cathrin, the founder of Bees and friends.
How did you come up with the idea?
The starting point was the media discussion on biodiversity and what role agriculture has in it. It was important to me, as a farmer, to enter into dialogue about this. That’s how the idea for bees and friends came about. It is about the cooperation between farmers and consumers. Our declared goal is to work together to protect our most valuable asset – nature.
Why is it important to plant flowers?
With “bee-friendly flowers”, as we use them in our flower mix, we create food sources for wild bees. But many other wild animals also enjoy the flowering areas and can use them as habitat.
What can I do in my everyday life to promote biodiversity?
You can get active yourself and make it bloom. We think every commitment counts. No matter how big and no matter where. Whether on the windowsill, in the garden or like bees and friends in the field. But of course there is much more to biodiversity than “planting flowers”. As consumers, we have a direct influence on this through our purchasing decisions. It’s great that manufacturers are transparent about how they produce and what impact this has on nature. That’s why I like the concept of fairafric so much. If you look around a bit, you will certainly find many manufacturers with similar concepts, e.g. farm stores or vending machines with regional, sustainable products.
Our Valentine’s Day Bundle
We decided to make a statement this year and developed a rather different gift for Valentine’s Day.
In our special bundle, you can enjoy the three newest fairafric varieties (2x 70% Tiger Nut & Almond, 2x 80% Fleur de Sel, 2x 43% Hazelnut) as well as a flower partnership from bees and friends. In your name, our cooperation partner bees & friends will plant a 10m² flowering area per bundle in Upper Bavaria, which will serve as a habitat for bees and many other wild animals. As a flower sponsor you have the opportunity to actively contribute to biodiversity.
Check the current status of the flowering area here and even take a look at it with the help of an app.
Conclusion
Bee mortality is a major problem of our time. Due to profit-maximizing decisions in many areas, the population of bee colonies has declined sharply in recent decades. Yet bees are essential to our environment. Without bees, fruit and vegetables, for example, would develop into real luxury products and would hardly be affordable for the general public. According to researchers, this would have fatal consequences for public health.
So for us it is a matter of the hear to support a great initiative and to draw attention to the problem of bee mortality.
