Many flowering crops in the UK provide a valuable source of pollen and nectar for bees and other pollinators as well as providing habitats for other insects. However, these crops are also susceptible to pests leading to agronomists recommending the use of plant protection products (PPPs) during sensitive growth stages.

Agronomists will play a critical role by ensuring their recommendations provide good crop protection while safeguarding pollinator health and supporting other beneficials.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify the agronomist’s professional responsibilities for protecting bees and other beneficials
• Understand how to evaluate and mitigate the impact of insecticide use on pollinator
• Recommend best practice principles when advising on products
• Support farmers in adopting an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach for pollinators
• Advise on complying with assurance schemes
• Signpost clients to useful tools and resources such as BeeConnected.

There are three lessons which include various links to other useful websites as well as PDF downloads for further information and future reference. At the end of the final lesson there is an end of course test. You must complete all the lessons and then achieve 80% in the test to earn two BASIS/NRoSO points. If you do not answer enough of the test questions correctly the first time, you will be able to retake the test until you do. Just click the restart test button.

You will need to follow the lessons in order and complete all the in-lesson quizzes to finish the course. The in-lesson quizzes do not count towards your final score. Follow the prompts at the end of each page to move through the course to the final test.

If you log out of the course at the end of a lesson, having completed it, it will save your progress up to that point for when you return.

Once you have completed the course and passed the test at the end, the course will show as 100% complete and we will then send your points to BASIS and/or NRoSO for you. This course is worth 2 points.

(If your progress is slow to update having completed each lesson, please refresh your browser)

If you get ‘lost’ at any point in the course, simply click on the start of the progress bar at the top of the page, which will bring you back to this page, where you can check below in the course grid, where you have got to and you can navigate from here.

To start, simply click on the first lesson in the course grid below: