The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), has called on countries to adopt policies to protect bees and other pollinators to avert eventual drop in food diversity. FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, made the call in Slovenia, at an official ceremony to mark World Bee Day.
Graziano da Silva, said policies must be promulgated to safeguard insects and other pollinators as a sure way in forestalling the occurrence of food shortage in the near future.
He added: “We cannot continue to focus on increasing production and productivity based on the widespread use of pesticides and chemicals that are threatening crops and pollinators. “Each one of us has an individual responsibility towards protecting bees and we should all make pollinator-friendly choices. Even growing flowers at home to feed bees contributes to this effort,” he added.
On the benefits of pollinators, the DG said pollinators, such as bees, wild bees, birds, bats, butterflies and beetles fly, that hop and crawl over flowers to help plants fertilize are sadly declining in numbers and diversity.
He noted that pollinators’ numbers and diversity have declined in the past decades, and evidence indicates that the decline is primarily a consequence of human activities including climate change which can disrupt flowering seasons. “It has become imperative to safeguard the bees because more than 75 per cent of the world’s food crops rely, to some extent, on pollination for yield and quality.”
He said that without bees and other pollinators, there would most certainly be food shortage as crops like coffee, apple, almond and others that require pollination would be unavailable.
Graziano da Silva noted that the panacea to the dwindling percentage of bees and other pollinators can only be solved through sustainable agriculture practices, agro-ecology, reduction in the use of pesticides and diversification of the economy.