02/18/2026
We’ve lost a lot of formerly productive acreage
in recent years in our area to solar projects, corn and soybeans. We also no longer see the fields of clover, alfalfa, buckwheat, star thistle, etc. that provided needed food for our honeybees (and other native pollinators). With the addition of changeover in herbicide usage to Dicamba and 2-4D from Glyphosate that are active in surface and groundwater and that wipe out non-target ‘weeds’ our honeybees rely on several miles from where it is implemented, it is starting to mean nationwide the collapse of longtime multi-generational beekeeping operations over the last few short years. We can no longer produce anywhere near the quantity of honey per hive that used to be a given. Nationally, and here, the bees are starving to death by malnutrition from the lack of flowering plants available that used to be a given. In the last two years, we have only seen a 15 #/hive honey production average. It was only a 30-35 #/hive average in 2021-2023. In 2020 and prior it was a 60-100 # average. Talking with the older beekeepers in Michigan, it used to be common to have anywhere from 120-200 #/hive average in the 1990s and prior. Our government’s regulations and decisions at both the state and federal levels are both killing farming and the environment as a whole….and we are letting it happen. Let that sink in. I have worked with Mike Bronkema on Farm Bureau’s Environmental and Natural Resource Advisory Committee. He has a good head on his shoulders….but the state ties our hands and turns a blind eye towards the future of our agricultural land.
https://www.mlive.com/news/2026/02/michigan-lost-100000-acres-of-farmland-in-a-year-where-is-it-going.html?outputType=ampf
Michigan has lost more than 670,000 acres of farmland over two decades. But the cause of this declining acreage is not always clear cut.
