Economic benefits of pollination to global food systems - Evidence and knowledge gaps

Pollination by bees and other animals is crucial to the production of 75% of the worlds crops, including many that are widely traded around the world, such as coffee, cocoa and rapseeed. By increasing crop production, pollinators help ensure the functioning of many global food systems. However, human activity within those food systems often has negative effects on pollinators, decreasing stocks of "pollinator natural capital" (populations of animals that provide pollination services) and disrupting the flow of pollination services to crops and other beneficial plants.

This has resulted in farmers losing out on millions of $ in production because their yields are limited by insufficient pollination.

Concerns over pollinator declines have been growing among national and global policy makers with high profile case studies such as the IPBES pollinator and global assessments, the UK's Dasgupta Review and the EU's INCA accounting report, all highlighting the need to value pollinator natural capital and pollination services for accounting and decision making. To date, much of the work on valuing pollination services has only focused on the value of the service itself to farmers and their immediate buyers (e.g. supermarkets), often focusing heavily on developed, temperate nations.

As such, we know very little about i) global stocks of pollinators, ii) the relationship between stocks and pollination services or iii) the relative risks that different countries or actors within the global food system face from pollinator losses.

Our project will address these issues by synthesising published academic literature, globally available economic data and new critical analyses to produce: i) a detailed outline of the benefits of pollinators to food systems, ii) an evaluation of the importance of pollination to globalised food systems and risks of economically significant pollinator losses, iii) review methods for quantifying and mapping pollinator natural capital, iv) comprehensive guide to the existing methods and knowledge on the value of pollination, and v) a review of the methods and data needs for better evaluating the impacts of pollination to the whole food system.

In addition to two high quality academic publications, we will also collaborate with an experienced scientific artist to produce accessible materials for policy and businesses. Although the importance of pollination has been discussed in international (e.g IPBES) and UK policy (e.g. the Dasgupta review), and in natural capital research (e.g. VNN's state of natural capital report), it is rarely actually valued in a manner useful for decision making and accounting.

By taking a whole food system approach and integrating both ecological and economic risks, our work will build on the information from the IPBES pollinators report and the Dasgupta review to produce the most comprehensive appraisal of the value of pollination available anywhere globally. Our work will help policymakers, academics and business to address challenges in measuring and valuing pollinators and pollination across the whole food system, identify parts of the world that are at high risks for pollinator losses, and highlight.