24/02/16

Lack of pollinators cuts small farm harvests

Copyright: Dieter Telemans/Panos

By: Gareth Willmer

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Lack of pollinators cuts small farm harvests</h1>
<h4>By: Gareth Willmer</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>Boosting the number of pollinators could increase crop yields on small <a href="https://www.scidev.net/agriculture/farming/">farms</a> in developing countries, a study says.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6271/388.full.pdf+html?">five-year study</a> published in the journal <em>Science</em> last month (22 January), researchers examined the gap between the highest- and lowest-yielding farms for pollinator-dependent crops, using a standard protocol across 344 fields in Africa, Asia and Latin America.</p>
<p>They found that, on farms of less than two hectares, increasing flower visits from 2.5 to 5.5 pollinators for every 100 flowers can reduce this yield gap by a quarter.</p>
<blockquote class="quote list-right">
<h3>
		“The findings, if properly utilised, will help to revive this sector, and more so in developing countries that only depend on wild pollinators.”</h3>
<h4>
		Hakim Baliraine, ESAFF</h4>
</blockquote>
<p>
For larger farms, crop yields were also greater when there were more pollinators, but only when the variety of such species was high.</p>
<p>Many crops rely on wild pollinators — bees in particular, as well as other insects and vertebrates such as birds — to move pollen from the male organs of a flower and fertilise the female gametes of the same, or another flower.</p>
<p>The study “really shows that there are already pollinator deficits out there. It’s not an ‘if’ anymore,” says coauthor Bernard Vaissière, a researcher in the bees and environment unit at French agricultural research institute INRA.</p>
<p>Parthiba Basu, director of the Centre for Pollination Studies at the University of Calcutta in India, agrees that pollinator populations are declining in intensively farmed areas across the world. For example, there is evidence of such “pollination limitation” in India because of habitat loss and pesticide use, among other factors, Basu says.</p>
<p>But the paper’s authors say it is possible to reverse this trend and attract pollinators, for example by sowing strips of flowers, planting hedgerows, providing nesting sites and limiting pesticide use.</p>
<p>The report addresses an important area that has not been researched much in Africa, says Hakim Baliraine, board chair of ESAFF (Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum) Uganda. “The findings, if properly utilised, will help to revive this sector, and more so in developing countries that only depend on wild pollinators,” he says.</p>
<p>Eric Lonsdorf, an ecologist at Franklin & Marshall College in the United States, praises the researchers for beginning to “quantify the gap in food production from various inputs, including pollination”. The study “could be used to show how much more food could be produced per unit area of crop”, he adds.</p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/pollinators-small-farm-harvests-food-security/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/news/pollinators-small-farm-harvests-food-security/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Boosting the number of pollinators could increase crop yields on small farms in developing countries, a study says.

In a five-year study published in the journal Science last month (22 January), researchers examined the gap between the highest- and lowest-yielding farms for pollinator-dependent crops, using a standard protocol across 344 fields in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

They found that, on farms of less than two hectares, increasing flower visits from 2.5 to 5.5 pollinators for every 100 flowers can reduce this yield gap by a quarter.

“The findings, if properly utilised, will help to revive this sector, and more so in developing countries that only depend on wild pollinators.”

Hakim Baliraine, ESAFF

For larger farms, crop yields were also greater when there were more pollinators, but only when the variety of such species was high.

Many crops rely on wild pollinators — bees in particular, as well as other insects and vertebrates such as birds — to move pollen from the male organs of a flower and fertilise the female gametes of the same, or another flower.

The study “really shows that there are already pollinator deficits out there. It’s not an ‘if’ anymore,” says coauthor Bernard Vaissière, a researcher in the bees and environment unit at French agricultural research institute INRA.

Parthiba Basu, director of the Centre for Pollination Studies at the University of Calcutta in India, agrees that pollinator populations are declining in intensively farmed areas across the world. For example, there is evidence of such “pollination limitation” in India because of habitat loss and pesticide use, among other factors, Basu says.

But the paper’s authors say it is possible to reverse this trend and attract pollinators, for example by sowing strips of flowers, planting hedgerows, providing nesting sites and limiting pesticide use.

The report addresses an important area that has not been researched much in Africa, says Hakim Baliraine, board chair of ESAFF (Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum) Uganda. “The findings, if properly utilised, will help to revive this sector, and more so in developing countries that only depend on wild pollinators,” he says.

Eric Lonsdorf, an ecologist at Franklin & Marshall College in the United States, praises the researchers for beginning to “quantify the gap in food production from various inputs, including pollination”. The study “could be used to show how much more food could be produced per unit area of crop”, he adds.