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Decline of wild bees threatens US crops pollination
The decline in the population of wild bees threatens agriculture in the US, where 39 percent of crops dependent on such pollinators may not receive the insects this year, a study says.
Washington: The decline in the population of wild bees threatens agriculture in the US, where 39 percent of crops dependent on such pollinators may not receive the insects this year, a study says.
Some 39 percent of pollinator-dependent crops "exhibit a mismatch between pollination supply and demand, with large areas of pollinator-dependent crops and low expected abundance of wild bees," University of Vermont researchers found.
Wild bees are disappearing from a number of regions, including agricultural areas in California, such as the Central Valley, the upper Midwest and the corn belt in the Great Plains, as well as the southern Mississippi River Valley.
The population of wild bees decreased by 23 percent between 2008 and 2013 and, although there are honeybee colonies for pollinating crops, they do not meet demand.
Farmers will soon face increased production costs and, in the longer term, "US agricultural production might be destabilized," said the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
