GREAT BARRINGTON — The birds and the bees are in trouble, and the town — and a lot of state lawmakers — are trying to help.

"A third of the food we eat is dependent on pollinators," Vivan Orlowski, chairwoman of the town's Agriculture Commission, told the Select Board Monday. "This is a crisis that's worldwide, and it's certainly nationwide."

Orlowski explained the threats to pollinators — certain species of insects and mammals that aid fertilization of plants by moving pollen from one plant to another. These are your hummingbirds, honeybees, butterflies and moths, bats and, yes, some rodents and even lizards.

But under threat from pesticides, development and anything that hacks up a meadow, for instance, the numbers of pollinators are declining. This puts crops here and everywhere at risk.

A 2016 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a group that works with the United Nations, points to the dire ramifications to the world's food source and a $577 billion global agricultural economy of pollination-dependent plants.

The Great Barrington Agricultural Commission developed the Great Barrington Pollinator Action Plan in 2016, the same year the town signed a resolution to protect pollinators — the first such municipal resolution in New England.

The action plan cites a National Academy of Sciences report that further outlines how important pollinators are to the survival of the world's fruits, vegetables and some nuts. According to the plan, humans are at risk, too: "Close to three quarters of the flowering plants on earth rely on pollinators in order to reproduce. From these plants comes one-third of humankind's food."

Orlowski said the action plan includes encouraging residents to refrain from pesticide use and education about pollinator-friendly plantings and techniques. The commission also is working with the town Department of Public Works Director Sean VanDeusen, who has incorporated pollinator-friendly practices into standard operating procedure.

That includes not mowing every last inch of town property — along the road, for instance, which also saves money, Orlowski said. It also involves reseeding with pollinator-friendly plants and adding those to Main Street planters.

The commission is waging a townwide education campaign to bring schools, businesses, farmers, residents and other groups on board, and saying town-owned land is considered a perfect springboard for a pollinator-supporting movement.

The plan, which can be found on the town's website, has a toolkit with lists of pollinator-friendly plants and techniques for allowing areas that support pollinators to flourish.

Devan Arnold, an ecologist, told the board Monday why pesticides are so devastating to pollinators.

"The chemical is taken up into the plant and ... is in the tissues of the plant," he said. The chemical, he added, infiltrates the pollen, which disorients pollinators and eventually kills them.

Neonicotinoids, or neonics, are a pesticide chemically related to nicotine that affects nerve receptors. They are considered particularly devastating to bees — Environment Massachusetts says they are about 6,000 times more toxic to the insects than DDT.

This has alarmed governments. This year, Maryland enacted an outright ban on neonics, with some exceptions. The European Union voted in April to ban three types of neonics, but still allows its use in permanent greenhouses.

Now, Massachusetts legislators have gotten involved. Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, D-Lenox, chairs the Joint Committee on Environment Natural Resources & Agriculture, through which a bill was sponsored to protect pollinators with regulations on neonic pesticide application.

"Basically, we say only trained and certified applicators can apply neonic pesticides on property used for agricultural use (food cultivation) or horticultural use (garden cultivation) and nowhere else in the Commonwealth," Pignatelli wrote in an email to The Eagle.

Neonic pesticides are the very type that enter a plant's tissue and its pollen and nectar, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Pignatelli also said the legislation would require property owners to be educated about the risks of neonics, and given a list of non-neonic pesticides. It would also require the state Department of Agricultural Resources to work with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst's Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment to develop new training for those who apply the pesticides, whether commercial or private.

"It's a strong bill with broad-based support," Pignatelli told The Eagle about a legislative process that might be done before the session ends in December.

"This is a priority — bees play a very prominent role [in the food supply]."

He further said that the bill, whose lead sponsor is Rep. Carolyn Dykema D-Holliston, will support Great Barrington's local resolution.

Pignatelli said it was Dykema who opened his eyes. And somewhere along the line, Rep. John Barrett, D-Adams, another of the bill's co-sponsors, had his eyes opened, too.

"Rep. Barrett and I are the last two that you would think would talk about bees," Pignatelli said. "I got a crash course from Rep. Dykema."

Heather Bellow can be reached at hbellow@berkshireeagle.com or on Twitter @BE_hbellow and 413-329-6871.