According to a recent UNEP report titled Global Bee Colony Disorders and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators, experts speculate declining bee numbers could have disastrous consequences on the global food supply unless some agricultural reforms are made.
“The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century,” Achim Steiner, UN Environment Programme executive director said in a UN News Centre press release. “The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world’s food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees.”
The report suggests the dwindling bee numbers are due to declines in flowering plants, increased use of insecticides and the spread of dangerous pests and pollutants, among other things. To combat the problem, the report suggests farmers be given incentives to make their property more bee-friendly by doing things such as putting flowering plants near or around fields.
To read the report, click here.