Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Insects Are Disappearing From UK Farms. Why, and What Can Be Done?
Genetic Literacy Prokect ^ | September 12, 2023 | Michael Garratt, Simon Potts, Tom Breeze

Posted on 09/14/2023 1:04:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Insects are disappearing from UK farms. Why, and what can be done? Michael Garratt, Simon Potts, Tom Breeze | September 12, 2023 Print Friendly, PDF & Email nature bees beekeeper honey Credit: Wallpaper Flare (Public Domain) Insect populations are declining worldwide at a rate of almost 1% per year. This decline is alarming. Insects play a crucial role in pollinating crops, controlling crop pests and maintaining soil fertility. In the UK alone, pollination provided by bees and other insects adds over £600 million to crop production every year. That’s about 10% of the country’s total annual crop value.

Through pollination, insects also make sure that fruit and vegetables are packed full of the vitamins and minerals needed for healthy human diets. Insufficient pollination would result in lower-quality foods, less choice and higher food prices.

The decline of pollinating insects is already affecting crop yields in the UK. Research on 20 UK apple orchards found that a lack of pollination led to average yield deficits (where the maximum potential output of these orchards was not reached) of up to 22%.

The issue extends beyond the UK’s borders. The UK imports a substantial proportion of fresh produce from regions such as Europe, north Africa, South America and Asia. So the global decline of pollinating insects also poses a huge threat to food security in the UK.

Just like fertiliser and water, these insects should be considered a legitimate agricultural input that needs to be protected and managed sustainably. There are effective methods available to restore beneficial insects to farmland, such as planting hedgerows and using pesticides sparingly, and farming practices are gradually changing. However, the implementation of these methods in the UK falls short of what is required to ensure the country’s food and nutritional security.

Follow the latest news and policy debates on sustainable agriculture, biomedicine, and other ‘disruptive’ innovations. Subscribe to our newsletter. SIGN UP Pollinators are under siege The main threats to pollinators globally are changes in what land is used for and how it is managed. As a result of the shift to modern industrialised farming, flower meadows and hedgerows have been replaced by monocultures and increasingly large fields. Consequently, the diversity of food sources available to pollinators has decreased and farmed landscapes have generally become less hospitable habitats for insects.

The excessive use of chemical pesticides and the impacts of climate change have made matters even worse. Rising temperatures are creating a mismatch between crop flowering times and when pollinators emerge. Bumblebees, for example, which are vital pollinators for crops both in the UK and globally, are struggling to shift their range in response to Europe’s warming climate.

Credit: Kenneth Allen/Geograph.ie (CC BY-SA 2.0) Together, these factors are driving losses in the abundance and diversity of pollinator species. Modelling studies have revealed around a 25% drop in the number of bee and hoverfly species observed within any 10km area of the UK compared to the 1980s.

And yet, the UK’s reliance on pollinating insects is likely to increase in the future.

Factors including climate change, technological advancements, shifting market demands and policies promoting sustainable food security mean new and underutilised crops such as soy, sunflowers and apricots are likely to be grown in the UK within the coming decades. Many of these crops benefit from insect pollination.

Restoring insects to farms Thankfully, there has been a notable shift in farming practices in recent decades towards reducing fertiliser, herbicide and pesticide use and restoring insect habitats. One approach is integrated pest management. This is a strategy for sustainable crop pest control that is based on using pesticides only when they are absolutely necessary.

The strategy was developed in response to steadily increasing pesticide use, which caused environmental damage and pesticide resistance. Farmers using integrated pest management are encouraged to prioritise the protection of natural predators such as wasps and spiders, which can help control pests effectively.

By reducing reliance on pesticides, integrated pest management also helps to protect pollinators. Research shows that bumblebees exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides (a widely used class of pesticide), for example, visited fewer flowers on apple trees and collected pollen less often.

In the UK, farmers are now incentivised to adopt environmentally sustainable practices through the environmental land management scheme. This scheme, which was fully launched in 2023, pays farmers to undertake activities that protect and enhance the natural landscape. These activities include planting hedgerows and flower strips along field boundaries, or creating woodlands.

Research demonstrates that expanding natural habitats in the UK’s productive arable farmland can boost pollinating insect populations. And, despite taking a portion of land out of productive agriculture, this approach did not reduce harvests.

Another option is agroforestry, where tree planting is deliberately combined with agriculture. This approach diversifies the farmed landscape and has been found to support twice as many pollinators as conventional cropping systems. In the case of apple pollination, these systems can even provide up to four and a half times more pollination.

But to fully amplify the benefits of agroforestry for pollinators, the UK needs to meet its national tree planting targets of 30,000 hectares per year by 2030. The current rate of tree planting falls significantly short of this target. Between 2018 and 2022, only 13,000 hectares were planted per year in the UK.

Over the past century, farming practices have contributed to insect declines. Supporting farmers to provide high-quality habitats for insects will not only help to slow down – or even reverse – insect decline, but will help to secure the UK’s food security.

Michael Garratt is a Principal Research Fellow at the University of Reading.

Simon Potts is a Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services at the University of Reading. Find Simon on X @SimonGPotts@SimonGPotts

Tom Breeze is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading.


TOPICS: Agriculture; Business/Economy; Gardening
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-40 next last

1 posted on 09/14/2023 1:04:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

No insect food for the proles?


2 posted on 09/14/2023 1:06:08 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

3 posted on 09/14/2023 1:06:49 PM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

The premise of the article seems to boil down to this:

Declining insect population is a threat to farming, and farming is the cause of declining insect population.


4 posted on 09/14/2023 1:07:49 PM PDT by Boogieman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

>> Insect populations are declining worldwide at a rate of almost 1% per year. <<

The U.S. government can’t compute the illegal alien population to within 100%, but we’re supposed to believe they know the insect pop within 1%?


5 posted on 09/14/2023 1:08:27 PM PDT by dangus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

The elites make all sorts of promises and never keep them.
“Eat insects”, they said.
Well, we did.
Now we will starve.


6 posted on 09/14/2023 1:08:38 PM PDT by Jonty30 (If liberals were truth tellers, they'd call themselves literals. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

I can ship them all the insects they want....

Lol.


7 posted on 09/14/2023 1:10:19 PM PDT by cgbg ("Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training." Anna Freud.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

The deep state has been poisoning the global environment with heavy metals and other toxins

Not as some kind of industrial byproduct. Deliberately poisoning.


8 posted on 09/14/2023 1:10:53 PM PDT by reasonisfaith (What are the personal implications if the Resurrection of Christ is a true event in history?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
I think I can predict things to come. When I glanced at the title, I said to myself “They’re gonna blame climate change.” And by golly, they did!

I’ve got to get one of those hats.

9 posted on 09/14/2023 1:11:05 PM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

“Insect populations are declining worldwide at a rate of almost 1% per year.”

Really? And who does the census of the global insect population every year?


10 posted on 09/14/2023 1:11:49 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

It’s getting warmer, and there are fewer bugs.

We’re all going to die.


11 posted on 09/14/2023 1:11:59 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MeganC
Really? And who does the census of the global insect population every year?

Top men.

Top. Men.

12 posted on 09/14/2023 1:12:41 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

The thrust of the article can be summed up in one old, simple rhyme:

When in panic and in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!


13 posted on 09/14/2023 1:13:16 PM PDT by jimtorr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

I’m betting most of the insect population has been in China, where they dont’ care about the environment. Just like the former Soviet was a giant toxic waste dump in many places.


14 posted on 09/14/2023 1:14:00 PM PDT by Jonty30 (If liberals were truth tellers, they'd call themselves literals. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MeganC

And who does the census of the global insect population every year?"

"Bugs" Bunny.

15 posted on 09/14/2023 1:16:01 PM PDT by Songcraft
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Don’t tell them, but, its the giant windmills. Those things are killing the whales and now the insects.

So, don’t tell them since they won’t listen. It’s a climate change thing and the windmills are necessary, even if they kill all life on the planet.

(That’s my theory and I’m sticking by it)


16 posted on 09/14/2023 1:22:48 PM PDT by adorno
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Stop eating them.


17 posted on 09/14/2023 1:24:38 PM PDT by MarMema (Eat your bananas, enjoy the decline)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

I thought warmer gets us more bugs. I think warmer, colder, or no change just get us more government control.


18 posted on 09/14/2023 1:25:28 PM PDT by alternatives?
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MarMema

🔝🔝🔝


19 posted on 09/14/2023 1:25:56 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Genetic Literacy Prokect

Really?

They can’t even spell their name right.

5.56mm


20 posted on 09/14/2023 1:26:37 PM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho have got to go)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-40 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson