Author: FAO
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.
Handbook for participatory socioeconomic evaluation of pollinator-friendly practices
Author: FAO
As a contribution to the International Pollinators Initiative, FAO and its partners have collaborated with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK, to develop a participatory approach to evaluating the costs and benefits to farmers of employing pollinator-friendly practices. This document thus presents a handbook for the application of the approach, outlining the different steps to be followed in assessing the value of practices. Formats for keeping records that are useful in the evaluation are provided in annexes.
Protocol to detect and assess pollination deficits in crops: A handbook for its use
Author: FAO
As a contribution to the International Pollinators Initiative, FAO 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. This document presents a handbook for the application of the protocol, outlining the underlying concepts, the hypothesis to be tested, and the modification and application of the protocol to a variety of circumstances in developing countries, such as small fields, home gardens, and high environmental variability.
Guidelines for the economic valuation of pollination services at a national scale
Author: FAO
As a contribution to the International Pollinators Initiative, this document provides guidance on the use of analytical tool, in the format of an associated spreadsheet, to assess the economic value of crop pollination and the vulnerability of countries or regions to pollinator declines.
Tools for conservation and use of pollination services: Initial survey of good pollination practices
Author: FAO
FAO has coordinated this initial survey of good practices to conserve and manage wild pollination services, in collaboration with the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya. Profiles of nine pollinator-dependent cropping systems from around the world have been compiled. The profiles provide detailed information on the impacts of specific practices on pollination services and the research or traditional systems supporting these practices, their socio-economic aspects, environmental costs, benefits and replicability. People interested in learning how to manage pollination services will find these profiles informative, as they explain practical applications of good practices in on-the-ground settings.
Author: FAO
Pollination is critical for food production and human livelihoods, and directly links wild ecosystems with agricultural production systems. Concerns about the loss of pollinators - wild as well as managed - and the services they provide have continued to mount over the last decades. This first assessment of the status of pollinators addresses progress in different approaches to conserving and sustainably using pollination services.