What are the most urgent changes for the protection of bees?

There are a couple big factors that can be changed by humans Number one is the loss of biodiversity. Humans have pushed themselves into every ecosystem and we destroy natural habitats. Bees need natural biodiversity, they need heterogeneous landscapes (human agriculture has caused a lot of these problems), they need constituency with the landscape. If humans continue invading ecosystems we’re going to only make the problem worse, and we’re already in a very bad situation.

The second thing I would mention is the use of pesticides in agriculture. “Big chemical” has a lot of weight in governments. I think controlling the use of dangerous pesticides is important however governments don’t really look for more innovative solutions when it comes to this, they kind of try to regulate or control the pre-existing structures which brought us to this point.

Lastly the low amount of investment in investigation, education and innovation. In Spain, the amount the government invests in education and investigation is laughable in comparison to other European countries. Working with investigators, you can tell how difficult it is to receive grants. Without investigation it’ll be hard to create innovative solutions.

How do you think open data can help SMEs in agriculture?

I think open data is almost synonymous to democratizing information, which personally I think is key we are missing in our world at the moment. Our mission as a company is to favorably impact the bee population and normalize the therapeutic use of cannabis. Open data can be extremely helpful for us to reach those goals.

Going back to what I mentioned beforehand as well, in this idea of investing in investigation, education and innovation. I think open data is crucial to investigation, education and innovation.

How important are EU regulations for your company?

It’s interesting their stance on restricting pesticides and the exploitation of land. However I think it still remains in this box of pre-existing structures, I personally don’t think it is radical enough. As a company, I think you are forced a little bit to maintain as well within this pre-existing structure. As PYMEs you do this or you’re eaten by the big guy.

I think the EU being more rigorous on changing these structures could truly help a lot of PYMEs and could de-monopolize big corporations. EU regulations that would help us achieve our mission, well, to name a few:

More rigorous restrictions on companies to minimize their carbon footprint and be forced to look into circular economic tactics. A move towards heterogeneous agriculture Moving towards the use of more sustainable crops, hemp, for example.