Article by Dr Ruan Veldtman
Researcher of the South African National Biodiversity Institute
and Stellenbosch University
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32721811
S
mallholder farmers that go
the extra mile to attract
more wild bees and other
pollinating insects to their
land could harvest up to 24% more
fruit or crops as a result. They can
harness nature’s free pollination
service by planting flower strips,
using pesticides more carefully and
restoring natural areas around their
farms. This is the advice from a fiveyear long global study on pollinators, which was reported on in the
leading journal Science and includes
data collected in Limpopo. It also
notes that large-scale commercial
farming cannot reap the same benefits using only these methods, and
will remain reliant on managed
honey bee hives to ensure that
enough food is produced.
The paper is among others coauthored by ecological entomologist Dr Ruan Veldtman of the South
African National Biodiversity Institute and Stellenbosch University. It
stems from the Global Action on
Pollination Services for Sustainable
Agriculture Project (GPP)), funded
by the Global Environmental Facility
and co-ordinated by the Food and
Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
The project commenced in 2010
and collected data in 344 fields of
small and large holdings in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, India,
Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan,
South Africa and Zimbabwe. It noted the number and variety of pollinators in each field, and the yield of
each crop over a five-year period. It
also recorded the resources (such as
plants that produce pollen and
serve as forage) needed to ensure
that local populations of wild bees
remain healthy enough to continue
providing free pollination services.
Dr Veldtman was among a host of
pollination experts and ecologists
that contributed to the study.
The South African data used in the
publication was collected by SANBI
scientists in a sunflower seed producing area in Limpopo. The GPP
also fully or partially funded the
postgraduate research of two MSc
students and two PhD students at
Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of
AgriSciences on matters relating to
the pollination of apples and hybrid
seed onions and forage to support
managed honey bees.
“Pollinators are an all-important
link in the cycle of food production,” says Dr Veldtman, who explains that most flowering plants
(including many that are used for
food) only produce seeds with the
help of animal pollinators. “We
need to treasure our wild bee populations as well the managed honey
bees that our beekeepers set out in
orchards and fields to ensure that
pollination takes place.”
Pollinating insects are however on
the decrease. This is because of the