During the Plantum Day on 19 September, the 9th Plantum Sustainability Award was presented to Dümmen Orange. Together with Naturalis, Dümmen Orange developed a method to test and breed plants for insect friendliness."Pollinators such as the wild bee and hoverfly have declined significantly over the past 30 years. This alarming trend poses a serious threat to our ecosystem."
The Plantum Sustainability Award was presented by Dick Veerman (left) to Foeke Gardeniers of Dümmen Orange.
Insect-friendly plants
"Bees and other insects are increasingly dependent on garden plants. There is a growing trend in society to remove tiles and plant flowers and plants specifically for bees. However, not all crops - and certainly not all varieties within a crop - are attractive to insects." Dümmen Orange and Naturalis' method tests for nectar volume, sugar concentration, number of flowers, and color. The combinations and variations of these traits determine whether a plant is attractive to insects. This way, they can find out what makes bees happy and which plants are truly insect-friendly.
Cooperation for tangible impact
With the Sustainability Award, Plantum wants to encourage members to communicate more about social activities to inspire each other and make the sector's sustainable efforts visible. About this year's winner, the jury said: "This entry focuses on cooperation with a knowledge institute, making knowledge and expertise from another discipline usable and manageable for the breeder. And with that, tangible impact in society can ultimately be obtained."
The jury
This year's Sustainability Award jury consisted of:
- Fioen van Balgooi, Project Manager at MVO Netherlands with projects around plants, nature, biodiversity, or ecological product design.
- Dick Veerman: Founder, moderator, and editor-in-chief of Foodlog
- Marien Valstar: Policy officer for plant-based materials, Ministry LVVN, Directorate of Vegetable Agro-chains and Food Quality.
For more information:
Plantum
Tel: +31 (0)182 68 86 68
[email protected]
www.plantum.nl
Dümmen Orange
Tel: +31 174 530 100
[email protected]
www.dummenorange.com