POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
relatively small direct production deficit caused by complete
pollinator loss would need to be compensated by expanding
global agriculture area by about 30-40% (Aizen et al., 2009).
Thus, although any potential pollinator decline might not
affect food production substantially, it will potentially entail a
high environmental cost in terms of natural and semi-natural
habitat destruction associated with the compensatory
expansion of agricultural land as well as pose other land-use
conflicts (Chapter 2).
3.7.3 Spatial and temporal
trends in agricultural pollinator
dependency
Although pollinators are directly involved in the production
of a small fraction of our food supply in terms of weight
(Aizen et al., 2009a, c), global agriculture has become more
pollinator-dependent over the last five decades. Pollinatordependent
production has increased >300% in absolute
terms, whereas the much larger non-dependent fraction
has less than doubled over this period (Aizen and Harder,
2009a). This increase in pollinator-dependency of agriculture
FIGURE 3.11
World map showing agriculture dependence on pollinators (i.e., the percentage of expected agriculture production volume loss in the
absence of animal pollination (categories depicted in the coloured bar) in 1961 and 2012, based on FAO dataset (FAOSTAT 2013) and
following the methodology of Aizen et al. (2009). 13
182
(A) 1961
3. THE STATUS AND TRENDS IN POLLINATORS
AND POLLINATION
(B) 2012
Percentage of expected agriculture loss in the absence of animal pollination
No data
0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5 15.0 25.0 (%)