Global Food Production Limited by Lack of Pollinators Is ‘Cause for Concern and Optimism,’ Researchers Say

An international research team led by Rutgers University has analyzed the crop yields of more than 1,500 agricultural lands on six continents, and found that a lack of pollinators is limiting the global production of important, nutrient-dense foods like fruits, nuts, vegetables and legumes.

The researchers found that one- to two-thirds of farms in many different locations, growing a variety of different crops, have fields that are no longer producing at optimum levels because of a lack of pollinators, a press release from Rutgers University said.

“Our findings are a cause for concern and optimism,” said Katie Turo, one of the study’s authors and a postdoctoral fellow in the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences’ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources. “We did detect widespread yield deficits. However, we also estimate that, through continued investment in pollinator management and research, it is likely that we can improve the efficiency of our existing crop fields to meet the nutritional needs of our global population.”

The study, “Insufficient pollinator visitation often limits yield in crop systems worldwide,” was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The team conducted an analysis of 200,000-plus crop flower “bee visitations” listed on one of the most extensive crop pollination databases in the world.

A native wild bee pollinates blueberry flowers in a New Jersey field. Molly MacLeod, Winfree Laboratory

CropPol, the open-source database, contains field observations of pollinators visiting plants from across three decades. The database was compiled by senior author Rachael Winfree — a Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources professor — in collaboration with colleagues from South America and Europe.

The study is not applicable to major food crops like wheat and rice, which do not need pollinators to reproduce. However, bees and other animals are needed to pollinate and proliferate “nutrient-dense and interesting foods that we like and are culturally relevant,” Turo said.

“If you look through a list of crops and think about which fruits and vegetables you’re most excited to eat— like summer berries or apples and pumpkins in the fall — those are the crops that typically need to be pollinated by insects,” Turo added.

When flowers are pollinated, pollen is transferred from the male to the female parts of the flower, which fertilizes the plant, allowing it to produce seeds and fruits, as well as young plants. Pollen can also be moved by water, wind or pollinators like wild bees, honey bees, other insects and animals like bats, small mammals, hummingbirds and other bird species.

The reproduction of roughly 88 percent of flowering plants in the world — as well as 76 percent of leading food crops globally — is supported by pollinators, earlier research by Winfree and other scientists has shown.

Because bees visit more flowers and transport more pollen than others, they are widely regarded as the most effective pollinators.

The scientists at Rutgers found that apple, coffee and blueberry crops were most often affected by pollinator limitation. The researchers discovered yield deficits in 85 percent of nations evaluated in the study for 25 distinct crops.

The researchers did reveal a silver lining to the issue of yield deficits: Scientists believe the problem could be remedied by realistically increasing pollinator visitation across individual fields, according to Turo. The study found that some fields were already being visited by a sufficient number of bees.

If consistency of pollinator visitations could be improved across low- and high-yield fields by field managers, many of the yield problems observed in the study could be addressed, Turo said.

“The findings are significant because crop yields, which measure the amount of crops grown per unit area of land, are relevant to assessing the adequacy of the world’s food supply relative to its population,” Winfree said in the press release. “Our findings show that by paying more attention to pollinators, growers could make agricultural fields more productive.”