Declining Pollinators

Subject – Environment

Context – Instability in yield of pollinator-dependent crops a ‘serious’ or ‘high risk’ in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania.

Concept –

World’s biodiversity faces a risk from a reduction of pollinators — bees, butterflies, birds, bats, etc. It seems that the risk is greater for most of the developing world, including Africa.
This casts a darker shadow on livelihoods: Rural populations in low-income countries are dependent on wild-growing foods. And the loss of pollinators poses risks to wild plants and fruits.
Around 40 per cent of the invertebrate pollinator species, particularly bees and butterflies, face extinction across the world, according to a report by Food and Agriculture Organization.
This is especially concerning for Africa and the Asia-Pacific, where pollinated crops are of notable nutritional and economic value to livelihoods and well-being.
These findings are all the more significant because pollinator-dependent food production increased 300 per cent over the past half century, according to the 2016 Assessment Report by Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Destruction of habitat, improper land-use such as grazing, fertilisers and crop monoculture of farming, along with high pesticide use have been identified as the leading causes behind the declining pollinators.
Climate change ranks as the fourth cause behind declining pollinators.