Tiny Miracle Workers

   Pollination is vital to life on our planet. Bees and other pollinators have thrived for millions of years, ensuring food security and nutrition, and maintaining biodiversity and vibrant ecosystems for plants, humans and the bees themselves.

   Pollinators are essential to the production of many of the micro- nutrient rich fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and oils we eat.

   In fact, close to 75 percent of the world’s crops producing fruits and seeds for human consumption depend, at least in part, on pollinators for sustained production, yield and quality.

   The diversity of food available is largely owed to animal pollinators. But alarmingly, in a number of regions, pollination services are showing declining trends. 

   In the past, this service was provided by nature at no apparent cost. As farm fields have become larger, agricultural practices have also changed, focussing on a narrower list of crops and increasing the use of pesticides. Mounting evidence points to these factors as causes to the potentially serious decline in populations of pollinators.

   The decline is likely to impact the production and costs of vitamin-rich crops like fruits and vegetables, leading to increasingly unbalanced diets and health problems, such as malnutrition.  More info found here: http://www.fao.org/3/I9527EN/i9527en.PDF