As well as affecting
the environment, the
decline in bees could also
put a dent in the wallets
of consumers. Professor
Dave Goulson, pollinator expert based at the
University of Sussex,
explains: “The worst
case scenario would be
ending up without pollinators or perhaps, more
realistically, not enough
pollinators to give us
a full yield. The fear is
that we will start seeing
yield declines in crops
like raspberries, strawberries, apples and
pears. Elsewhere in the
world crops like cocoa
and coffee, which rely
on insect pollination,
would also be under
threat. This may then
push up food prices,
and reduce food production at a time when
the world’s population
is ever increasing.”
A study released early
this year had a similar conclusion (3). It
suggested that Europe
had 13 million fewer
honeybee colonies than
would be needed to pollinate all of its crops.
This means that there
is an over reliance on
wild pollinators such as
bumblebees and hoverflies and this, in itself,
is dangerous because
we don’t know exactly
how many wild pollinators there are. Goulson
said: “The key problem
is that we don’t really
have a reliable measure of wild bee numbers at the moment.
For most pollinators we
don’t have much of a
clue what is happening
until they disappear.”
This has worried scientists with some suggesting there may be a
food security catastrophe in the future if we
don’t act to stop the fall
in bee numbers (4).
Bumblebee
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