The results of a five-year long international, collaborative research effort by 35 scientists in 12 countries demonstrate clearly the importance of pollinators to crop yields. Published in the January 2016 issue of Science Magazine, the data from the study should be useful for small farmers all around the world, not just those in the developing nations where much of the research took place.
“One of the main problems of conventional agriculture is it has a huge ecological foot print,” says project lead Dr. Lucas Garibaldi, a professor at Argentina’s Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro and the director of the Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. “It’s the main driver of bio-diversity loss and water consumption. We were interested to know if there are ways to produce without destroying the environment, and specifically, how pollinator-friendly environments can enhance crop production.”
The study’s methodology was to utilize, and develop, environmentally-friendly and pollinator-friendly practices, put them into use and to study how the enhancement of pollinators affects crop yield. The research took place in a variety of small and large farms in Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America. Each site was monitored between one and three years.
The pollinator-friendly practices utilized include restoration of semi-natural and natural areas adjacent to crops, flower strips and planting hedgerows, ensuring access to clean resources for pollinators and more targeted use of pesticides, if not the outright elimination of pesticides. Garibaldi says the study’s results prove the importance of pollinators, particularly to smaller farms.
“Most of our researchers focused on, rather than increasing yield potential, closing yield gaps — the difference between higher yields and lower yields in a region,” says Garibaldi. “If you increase the farms with the lower yield you can increase production in a way that is more sustainable than trying to increase yield potential. We found that pollination was very important for crop yield. You can close the gap by 24 percent.”
Garibaldi says that the research fills gaps left by previous efforts, which focused primarily on increasing yield potential in larger farms. While the core focus of this research is on smaller farms in developing nations, the data will be useful for smaller-scale farmers anywhere in the world.
“We found these pollinator friendly practices were more effective on small farms,” says Garibaldi. “But they can also increase crop yield in large farms if pollinator diversity is provided”
As with any research effort, the work is never truly done. Garibaldi says that he is currently working on understanding the ecological, social and economic performance of different farming systems.
- Matt Jones