July 18, 2019
Andrew Campbell
A research article is published on July 10, entitled “Global agricultural productivity is threatened by increasing pollinator dependence without a parallel increase in crop diversification”, in the journal Global Change Biology. The study is a joint effort from an international team of 14 researchers and is the first global assessment of how current farming practices may be threatening pollinators and the crops that depend on them. Researchers suggest that a lack of crop diversity is sabotaging pollinators and subsequently endangering agricultural productivity of pollinator‐dependent crops.
Based on data recorded between 1961 and 2016 from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), researchers found that the total field area of crops which requires pollination expanded by 137% while crop diversity increased by only 20.5%. They have identified particularly developing countries in South America, Africa, and Asia, where an increasing dependence on pollination but a lack of crop diversity could ultimately threaten food supplies and economic stability.
Co-author Professor David Inouye from the University of Maryland pointed out farmers tend to grow few crops like fruits, nuts, and oilseeds of higher market value, this practice is leading to monocultures which “are not great for pollinators, and countries that diversify their agricultural crops are going to benefit more than those that expand with only a limited subset of crops.”
One recent study has found that more than 40% of the world’s insect species might go extinct over the next few decades due to the causes include rampant pesticide use, the spread of pathogens, increased urbanization and climate change. Such a massive loss of insects plays an essential role in food chains and as fewer pollinators worldwide, crop yields will diminish. Co-author Professor of General Zoology Robert Paxton at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, a member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, warns to ward off chronic food shortages by means of global crop diversification.
Professor Marcelo Aizen, a scientist at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina, who led the study, explains “Soy production has risen by around 30 percent per decade globally” and “numerous natural as well as semi-natural habitats, including subtropical and tropical forests and meadows, have been destroyed for soy fields.”
The study suggests farmers “make the areas under cultivation more natural, for example by planting strips of flowers or hedgerows next to their fields and by providing nesting habitats on field margins.” “This would ensure that there are adequate habitats for insects, which are essential for sustainable and productive farming,” researchers added.
Photo:Webshot.