Though the decline in bee populations has been well-documented worldwide, a recent study in the prestigious journal Current Biology says that the food supply is not yet in any immediate danger. Modern agricultural practices have constantly increased yields since the 1960s, when the food production finally surpassed demands.
"The research team scored crops on how much they depend on pollinators for maximum production. Depending on the crop, this dependence ranges from zero to 100 per cent. For example, cereal crops like wheat don't need to be pollinated but at the other end of the scale, un-pollinated almond trees produce no nuts," Dr Saul Cunningham, at CSIRO Entomology, said.
"While this is a positive finding, the interaction between yields and pollination is a hugely complex issue which needs to be teased-out further. Global summaries can also hide local stories. In some places, local pollinator shortages are affecting local production. While these don't threaten overall global food supplies, they can have very significant impacts on local communities and their economies," he added.
Yields have been growing at a rate of about 1.5 percent per year over the last decades, and experts say that it's highly unlikely this overall trend will stop in the near future. However, seeing how there are species that cannot produce fruits without pollination, the international scientific community has to come up with a way to tackle the problem of bee decline shortly.
"The fact that, while pollinators are declining in various parts of the world, global agricultural systems are becoming more dependent on pollinators, could create serious problems in the future," Cunningham said. Considering the fact that, for now, more water and fertilizers offset the lack of bees, scientists may have won a short moment to catch their breaths and come up with a solution to this problem. If they don't, the requirements for the output of usual yields on farmlands may simply become too great.
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