You don’t need us to tell you just how important pollination is in the world. Without it, around 80% of the earth’s crop plants that grow all over the world wouldn’t be able to produce, leaving a number of plants around the globe in either a major decline or worse, led to their death.
This also means that if the world loses its pollinators, like the bees, birds, butterflies and even beetles, a number of America’s favorite kinds of food wouldn’t exist either. This is why the multinational conglomerate Walmart has announced that within the United States, they are putting into motion plans to have their grocery supply chain embrace pollinator protection policies.
According to head of produce sourcing for Walmart U.S., Martin Mundo, with the company’s new pledge – that was just made in the past month – the grocery retailer has become the biggest ‘pollinator health effort’ from any American grocery chain or retailer to this day. What the plan hopes to do is promote Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices, which lessens a number of pollinator threats and expand and improve pollinator habitats.
America’s biggest retailer has promised to source 100% of its fresh produce and floral items that it sells in their in-store produce department only from suppliers that use IPM practices by the year 2025, for as long as they are verified by a third party.
This grocery chain store also says that it will advocate for fresh produce companies or suppliers to report their biodiversity management and pesticide applications yearly by having them answer sustainability surveys annually as well.
Mundo also wrote on the Walmart corporate website, “We are also encouraging fresh produce suppliers to phase out use of chlorpyrifos and nitroguanidine neonicotinoids pesticides (where applicable unless mandated otherwise by law) – and avoid replacing them with products having a level I bee precaution rating and assess and report annual progress.”
In order for Walmart U.S. to ensure that pollinator habitats are improved and expanded, they will make sure that their fresh produce suppliers will ‘protect, restore, or establish pollinator habitats on at least 3% of land they own, operate, and/or invest in by 2025.’
In addition, Walmart has also ‘pledged to protect, manage or restore’ another 50 million acres of land, as well as one million square miles of ocean by the year 2030.
The food supply chain will already begin to place special tags showing which of their plants attract pollinators in order to encourage customers to grow their own gardens that can attract pollinators too. This equates to over 1.3 million annual and perennial pollinator-promoting plants that will feature these special tags in Walmart stores across the country when spring hits.
The company’s senior vice president shared, “We will also continue to avoid selling invasive plant species in our retail stores (based on recognized regional lists)… and work with local organizations to protect, restore or establish pollinator habitats in major pollinator migration corridors.”
“In addition, we have partnered with solar developers to establish pollinator habitats around solar panel arrays like the one at our distribution center in Laurens, South Carolina, and through Walmart’s lead participation on community solar farms across Minnesota. We will continue to look for opportunities to establish more pollinator habitats where feasible.”
Meanwhile, the retailers nonprofit organization, the Walmart Foundation, also gave funding to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology so that they can continue to work towards monitoring pollinators in local areas by collecting citizen science data in order to improve conservation planning.
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