Agri View: Pollinator Extinction

Dan Agri View, Environment, General

pollinator
Everett Griner talks about pollinator extinction not caused just by colony collapse disorder in today’s Agri View.

Pollinator Extinction

From: NPR.org

Report: More Pollinator Species In Jeopardy, Threatening World Food Supply

by Merrit Kennedy, NPR writer

A major global assessment of pollinators is raising concerns about the future of the planet’s food supply.

pollinatorA U.N.-sponsored report drawing on about 3,000 scientific papers concludes that about 40 percent of invertebrate pollinator species (such as bees and butterflies) are facing extinction. Vertebrate pollinators (such as bats and birds) are somewhat better off by comparison — 16 percent are threatened with extinction, “with a trend towards more extinctions,” the researchers say.

About 75 percent of the world’s food crops, the report notes, depend at least partly on pollination.

“Pollinators are important contributors to world food production and nutritional security,” assessment co-Chair Vera Lucia Imperatriz-Fonseca says in a statement. “Their health is directly linked to our own well-being.”

Crops that need help from pollinators include coffee, apples, cacao, cotton, mangoes and almonds, to name just a few.

We’re also talking big business: “The annual value of global crops directly affected by pollinators” ranges from $235 billion to $577 billion, according to the statement.

NPR’s Dan Charles says the report “is largely based on studies in North America and Europe; there’s been less research on pollinators in Africa and Asia.”

pollinatorIt was released by The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which operates under U.N. auspices. The assessment cites about 3,000 scientific papers and, researchers say, “includes information about practices based on indigenous and local knowledge from more than 60 locations around the world.” The report was presented by IPBES on Friday in Kuala Lumpur.

Pollinators are under threat for a number of reasons.

The decline of wild butterflies, bees and other pollinators “is primarily due to changes in land use, intensive agricultural practices and pesticide use, alien invasion species, diseases and pest, and climate change,” says IPBES Vice Chair Robert Watson.

Read the full article.