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Beemune Ltd - a new company spun out from NUI Maynooth -
has been formed to tackle one of the biggest threats to global
food production - the widespread disease and premature death
of the world's bee population.
The Tanaiste said the new firm has the potential to immediately
begin solving a major problem for the US$500 billion global
food crop industry.
Beemune
is an Enterprise Ireland-supported spin-out which will lead
to significant wealth creation and high value job creation
over the next 3 years. It is an export company, selling into
the US$3.5 billion commercial honeybee market with its main
focus on US, Australia and New Zealand, the Tanaiste said.
Over the past decade, commercially managed honeybees, vital
for the production of up to 40pc of all fruit and vegetables,
have suffered from increasing ill health due to factors -
including monoculture, parasites, new pesticides and reducing
gene pools.
This problem was greatly exacerbated in 2007 by a phenomenon
called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
in which almost two-thirds of the entire commercial bee population
was wiped out during the winter hibernation season. The causes
of CCD are not yet understood, but the problem is most acute
in the United States, with mainland Europe and Australia also
affected.
Beemune's products are food additives, developed after more
than two years of research at NUI Maynooth by Dr Kevin Kavanagh,
a world renowned expert in insect biology and immunology.
Current trials have shown that the products rapidly improve
the health and vitality of bee colonies and Beemune expects
to bring its low-cost, highly effective products to the worldwide
market in 6-18 months.
Test products are currently being produced at NUI Maynooth
in support of ongoing field trials. The company intends to
reinvest a significant proportion of its revenues to build
a substantial Research and Development centre in Ireland over
the next 3 years.
With the natural honeybee population no longer sufficient
to support agriculture, farmers around the world have become
increasingly reliant, over the last 30 years, on commercially
managed bee colonies to pollinate their crops. In the US alone,
there are 2.5m bee hives, of which 1.5m are used to commercially
pollinate crops, moving with the seasons, from farm to farm,
crop to crop, pollinating the foods that ultimately end up
on consumers' tables in every country. This industry is worth
an estimated €3.5 billion globally.
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