What happens if bees die?

Greetings from Nigeria where agriculture is beginning to get attention in high quarters; thanks to the fall in oil prices and discovery and exploration of crude oil in other nations. I am hopeful that the agricultural era will rise again but this time it must have to be by the youths and with little or no insecticide. We should learn from South West China where bees have all but died out, thanks to massive pesticide use.

Guess what; one out of three bites of food come from a bee pollinated plant and I am sure we may all be in the knowing of a famous quote credited to Albert Einstein. “If the bees disappears from the surface of the globe man would have no more than four years to live”. According to figures from the USDA in 2013, the estimated annual amount by which bee pollination increases crop yield is to the tune of about $15 billion in the United States alone. Wow.   

Okay, what am saying is that there will be no almonds because bees exclusively pollinate them. Apples, Onions, Asparagus, Avocado, Broccoli, and Blueberry have a 90% reliance on bee pollination. Hence, to ignore the health of bees as we aspire to improve on food security will be a half baked agenda. Further keeping bees around or in farms and carefully understanding the concept of pollination can increase yield by not less than 40%. This I have evidence for in Niger and Kaduna states of Nigeria.

Unfortunately, agro chemical are almost all produced from a family of chemicals called neonicotinoids which when combined in various forms can give more than a thousand other forms of agro-chemicals. In Nigeria in the Cocoa planting states, the effect of the agro-chemicals they use has not only reduced cocoa yield; it has also reduced the production of vegetables and fruits significantly. These farmers manage to get yields in grains such as corn, rice and wheat because they are self pollinated but I doubt if the toxins in these chemicals will not be found as residues in these grains meant for human and animal consumption.

As it is in my country, Youths will better be adaptable to the techniques and challenges of beekeeping. A couple of oral and written presentations have been made in government and public cycles in an effort to orientate our citizens. It is hoped that recent efforts by some NGOs to re-introduce beekeeping into Nigeria will be up scaled this time with provision of start-ups for these rural youths. Quite interestingly, our tertiary institutions still do not offer apiculture or entomology at the undergraduate level; this by extension means that lots of training and research work is still needed. Studies as well prove that beekeeping in Nigeria is more profitable than conventional agriculture; a combination of both will be quite motivating for our youths that have no jobs, particularly the vulnerable ones.

I strongly align with four of the five GCARD3 key themes which are Scaling up from research to impact, demonstrating results and attracting investments, sustaining the business of farming and ensuring better rural futures. I ‘BEElieve’ as an entomologist and farmer that I represent the interest of insects, and particularly the bees and will want to play the role of helping to promote the balancing of farming with the use of insecticides to reduce or eliminates the adverse effect of killing our beneficial pollinators as we strive to attain on to our 2030 zero hunger target. For this reason I hope I will be granted an opportunity to participate and hopefully funded for ‘beekeeping for rural development’.

Let me end with these words from Henry David Thoreau. “There are certain pursuits which if not wholly poetic and true do at least suggest a nobler and finer relationship to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance”.

I am Oluwaseun Johnson, an entomologist, and a dual citizen of Nigeria and Ghana, I am the principal partner of OKJ Wildlife and I currently train farmers for USAID MARKETS 2 in Nigeria to keep bees to generate income from sales of produce, improve on house hold nutrition from consumption of produce and engage bees in pollination intervention to improve crop yield.

Credit:

1.   Time Magazine, August 19, 2013. A world without bees: The price we’ll pay if we don’t figure out what’s killing the honey bee. Written by Bryan Walsh.

2.   A comparative analysis of beekeeping and crop production in Adamawa state, Nigeria. Muhammad R. Ja’afar-Furo, Abdurrahman Suleiman and Yusuf El-Sahab Hong.

This blog post is part of the GCARD3 Youth blogpost applications. The content, structure and grammar is at the discretion of the author only.

Picture credit: Enoch Bahago. Oluwaseun training women to keep bee in Ondo state, Nigeria for USAID Nigeria.