Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
-
Book (stand-alone)Pollination services for sustainable agriculture 2008
Also available in:
No results found.Pollinators are essential for orchard, horticultural and forage production, as well as the production of seed for many root and fibre crops. Pollinators such as bees, birds and bats affect 35 percent of the world’s crop production, increasing outputs of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide. Food security, food diversity, human nutrition and food prices all rely strongly on animal pollinators. The consequences of pollinator declines are likely to impact the production and costs of vitamin-rich crops like fruits and vegetables, leading to increasingly unbalanced diets and health problems. Maintaining and increasing yields in horticultural crops under agricultural development is critically important to health, nutrition, food security and better farm incomes for poor farmers. In the past, pollination has been provided by nature at no explicit cost to human communities. As farm fields have become larger, and the use of agricultural chemicals has increased, mounting evidence points to a p otentially serious decline in populations of pollinators under agricultural development. -
Book (stand-alone)Rapid assessment of pollinators'status
A contribution to the international initiative for the conservation and sustainable use of pollinators
2008Also available in:
No results found.Every continent has reports of pollinator declines in at least one region/ country. The losses of pollination services have been well documented in many specifi c instances; what remains lacking are global assessments of changes in the distribution and levels of pollination services. As the recognized drivers of pollinator losses (changing land-use patterns, pesticide use, diseases, invasive species and climate change) are themselves changing in intensity, the global community is jus tifi ed in taking note and determining the actions that will conserve pollinators. The insidious nature of the loss of ecosystem services- by slow erosion rather than cataclysmic events- demands careful monitoring. Pollinators provide essential services to humans. In several instances, impressive documentation of the market and non-market values derived from pollination services has been made. Despite this, the economic valuation of pollination services has a number of challenges to overcome, many stemming from the gaps in understanding of the actual contribution of pollination to crop production. Developing sound management plans for pollinators will hinge on good taxonomic support. Linked to the taxonomic information about species is other information on biological characteristics (including fl oral relationships and ecological linkages) that are important for adaptive management. New approaches to managing pollinator information should help to overcome the taxonomic impediment, although the focus at present has been on bees, and not on other key pollinator groups. -
Book (stand-alone)Aspects Determining the Risk of Pesticides to Wild Bees: Risk Profiles for Focal Crops on Three Continents 2013
Also available in:
No results found.Globally, agricultural production systems are under pressure to meet multiple challenges: to sustain or increase production from the same area of land and reduce negative impacts on the environment amid uncertainties resulting from climate change. As farming systems adapt to meet these challenges, one of agriculture’s greatest assets in meeting them is nature itself. Many of the ecosystem services provided by nature – such as pollination – directly contribute to agricultural production. Beneficial insects such as pollinators may be heavily impacted by pesticides. This document makes a contribution to understanding the context of pesticide exposure of key crop pollinators – honey bees, but also wild bee species – through the development of risk profiles for cropping systems in Brazil, Kenya and the Netherlands. Risk profiles such as those showcased here can provide a qualitative evaluation of pesticide risks to bees in specific settings, and can be used to compare risk s between different settings, facilitate discussion amongst stakeholders, identify gaps in information, set priorities for research, and establish priorities for risk mitigation.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.