As a contribution to the International Pollinators Initiative, FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division (AGP) and its partners have collaborated with INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, a public research body of the French government) to develop a protocol for assessing and detecting if a crop production system is suffering a pollination deficit.   

A handbook for the application of the protocol is available on the "Documents" page of AGP's Global Action on Pollination Services for Sustainable Agriculture website.  The handbook outlines the underlying concepts, the hypothesis to be tested, and the modification and application of the protocol to a variety of circumstances in the countries participating in the GEF/UNEP/FAO Global Pollination Project, such as small fields, home gardens, and high environmental variability.  Annexes to the handbook provide data sheets for collecting the needed information.

The field testing and adaptation of the protocol and production of the handbook was made possible through the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Rome, Italy.