Is inadequate pollinator visitation limiting our global food supply?

Global food security and insect decline

To predict the effects of insect decline, we need to first understand how often pollinator visitation currently limits crop yields. With a team of international scientists, I analyzed the largest database on crop pollination to date and asked:

How prevalent are current yield deficits due to lack of pollinators worldwide? Are there risk factors that predict where yield deficits are more likely? By how much could increases in pollinator visitation improve crop yields?

We used 198,360 plant-pollinator interactions and 2,083 yield measurements to measure pollinator limitation in 120 study systems across 32 crop species and 27 countries (Turo et al. 2024).

We found that 28-61% of global crops are currently limited by insufficient pollinator visitations and blueberry, coffee, and apple crops are most frequently affected. Despite the prevalence of yield limitation, our analysis was ultimately optimistic that small increases in pollinator visitation could address much of the observed yield shortfalls.

Crop pollinators (C) Max McCarthy, PhD Student Winfree Laboratory