In the UK, Europe has 13.4 million too few honeybee colonies to properly pollinate its crops, according to new research from the University of Reading. The discovery, made by scientists at the University’s Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER), shows that demand for insect pollination is growing five times as fast as the number of honeybee colonies across Europe as farmers grow more oil crops, such as oilseed rape and sunflowers, and fruit.
Dr Tom Breeze, who conducted the research published January 8 in the journal PLOS One, said: “This study has shown that EU biofuel policy has had an unforeseen consequence in making us more reliant upon wild pollinators. “The results don’t show that wild pollinators actually do all the work, but they do show we have less security if their populations should collapse.”
