Pollination plight: call to stop spraying gardens, lawns, with chemicals

The future of our vegetable industry now lies in their hands after the usual pollinators - the honey bees - were killed in a fight against the Varroa mite in the Hunter region.

Slow Food Hunter Valley is on a mission to make Maitland a breeding ground for these insects so they can step up and pollinate farmers' spring and summer crops.

It's an uphill battle. The use of chemical sprays in the garden, and especially on lawns, can wipe out these insects.

Without them the earth market farmers will be lucky to produce a pumpkin, watermelon, rockmelon, squash and zucchini - to name a few.

Earth Market Maitland chairwoman Amorelle Dempster said the city's fresh food revolution was "in serious trouble" and needed every citizen to help keep it alive.

She said residents must stop spraying for weeds and start pulling them out by hand.

She warned the cost of fresh food would rise sharply if farmers couldn't produce their usual yields.

Ms Dempster has called a public meeting on Friday to spread the word and urged Maitland council to stop using harmful sprays.

Related: Hives destroyed as beekeepers go to war with varroa

"There is a lot of lawn in this town. We can't have people killing all of our pollinators by spraying their lawns for the summer - any pollinators we've got like hover flies, blow flies, our native bees, you name it - they will be affected," she said.

"It's critical to get all those other pollinators to come to the fore this summer to help us survive. This is about our food security."

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Ms Dempster encouraged residents to take a free packet of seed from the seed library and plant it in their garden.

She also urged anyone with winter crops to let some of them go to flower to attract pollinators and feed them while the spring crops grow.

Chemical use at a minimum

Maitland council's environment and sustainability manager Catherine Pepper said it was "committed to ensuring chemical use was kept to a minimum across our operations" and agreed that pollinators were important.

She said the council did not use neonicotinoids, which had been linked to the declining health of honey bees in some regions.

Related: DPI confident about varroa mite extraction

"Council's annual weed management program includes only one annual application of a selective herbicide, which is only applied in passive recreation spaces," Ms Pepper said.

Help fed the pollinators

Ms Dempster said residents could grow some spring and summer crops to help feed the pollinators - and take food security into their own hands.

"If you're concerned about buying locally grown food from your local producers then you need to be doing your bit to increase the number of insects and pollinators in the environment," she said.

More than 6000 honey bee hives have been euthanised and around 2000 beekeepers have been affected since the varroa mite was detected in biosecurity hives at the Port of Newcastle in June.

There have been 99 infected sites identified so far, the most recent in Mayfield and Calga.

The eradication zone, called the red zone, now includes most of the Maitland LGA and is on the doorstep of Windella, Gosforth, Rosebrook, Bishops Bridge, Heddon Greta, Stanford Merthyr and Kurri Kurri.

Public meeting

The meeting will be held at the Maitland-Rutherford Girl Guides Hall in St Andrews Street, central Maitland, at 5pm. Seeds are available for free at East Maitland Library.