Economic value of insect pollination worldwide estimated at 153 billion euros

Earlier we reported on how smartly designed bioenergy systems can help restore ecosystems and protect or enhance their services to humanity. We zoomed in on the current crisis afflicting bee colonies, which suffer under the devastating 'colony collapse disorder'. Bioenergy crop systems offer an opportunity to restore the plant diversity needed by honey bees and other pollinators (previous post). A new study now points out just how important the survival of pollinators really is. According to scientists from France and Germany, the global economic value of the pollination services provided by insects, was €153 billion in 2005, for the main crops that feed the world.

The scientists from France's INRA and CNRS, together with German colleagues from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) found that the worldwide economic value amounted to 9.5% of the total value of the world's entire agricultural food production. The study also determined that pollinator disappearance would translate into a consumer surplus loss estimated between €190 to €310 billion. The results of this research on the economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline are published in the journal Ecological Economics.

Among biodiversity concerns, the decline of pollinators has become a major issue, but its impact remains an open question. In particular, the economic value of the pollination service they provide had not been assessed on solid ground to date. Based upon the figures of the literature review published in 2007 on pollinator dependence of the main crops used for food, the new study used FAO and original data to calculate the value of the pollinator contribution to food production in the world.

Three main crop categories (following FAO terminology) were particularly concerned; fruits and vegetables were especially affected with a loss estimated at €50 billion each, followed by edible oilseed crops with €39 billion. The impact on stimulants (coffee, cocoa,...), nuts and spices was less, at least in economic terms.

The scientists also found that the average value of crops that depend on insect pollinators for their production was on average much higher than that of the crops not pollinated by insects, such as cereals or sugar cane (€760 and €150 per metric ton, respectively). The vulnerability ratio was defined as the ratio of the economic value of insect pollination divided by the total crop production value. This ratio varied considerably among crop categories with a maximum of 39% for stimulants (coffee and cocoa are insect-pollinated), 31% for nuts and 23% for fruits. There was a positive correlation between the value of a crop category per production unit and its ratio of vulnerability ; the higher the dependence on insect pollinators, the higher the price per metric ton:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: energy crops :: biodiversity :: ecosystem services :: polination :: ecological economics ::

From the standpoint of the stability of world food production, the results indicate that for three crop categories – namely fruits, vegetables and stimulants – the situation would be considerably altered following the complete loss of insect pollinators because world production would no longer be enough to fulfil the needs at their current levels. Net importers, like the European Community, would especially be affected. This study is not a forecast, however, as the estimated values do not take into account all the strategic responses that producers and all segments of the food chain could use if faced with such a loss. Furthermore, these figures consider a total loss of pollinators rather than a gradual decline and, while a few studies that show a linear relationship between pollinator density and production, this must be confirmed.

The consequence of pollinator decline on the well being of consumers, taken here in its economic sense, was calculated based on different price elasticities of demand. The price elasticity represents the effects of price change on consumer purchase, that is, the percent drop in the amount purchased following a price increase of 1%. In their study, the scientists assumed that a realistic value for the price-elasticities would be between -0.8 and -1.5 (for a value of -0.8, the consumer would buy 0.8% less of the product when its price increases by 1%). Under these hypotheses, the loss of consumer surplus would be between €190 and €310 billion in 2005.

These results highlight that the complete loss of insect pollinators, particularly that of honey bees and wild bees which are the main crop pollinators, would not lead to the catastrophic disappearing of world agrioculture, but would nevertheless result in substantial economic losses even though the figures consider only the crops which are directly used for human food.

The adaptive strategies of economic actors – such as re-allocation of land among crops and use of substitutes in the food industry – would likely limit somewhat the consequences of pollinator loss. Yet the authors did not take into account the impact of pollination shortage onto seeds used for planting, which is very important for many vegetable crops as well as forage crops and thereby the whole cattle industry, non-food crops and, perhaps most importantly, the wild flowers and all the ecosystem services that the natural flora provides to agriculture and to society as a whole.

The authors of the study are part of an EU research project called ALARM (Assessing Large-Scale Risks for Biodiversity with Tested Methods), which is an integrated research agenda dealing with the relations between (sustainable) development, global change and ecosystems.

References:
Nicola Gallai, Jean-Michel Salles, Josef Settele, Bernard E. Vaissière, "Economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline", Ecological Economics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.06.014.

Biopact: Could bioenergy save the bees? - August 18, 2008.