The Economic Value of Bees Revised Upward

The economic impact of the services provided by bees and other pollinators in the United States is much greater than initial estimates suggested. The updated figures put the value added by these species into perspective and should spur conservation efforts.   Pollinators such as bees play an extremely important role in agriculture. They pollinate crops, promote biodiversity, and ensure the proper functioning of ecosystems. Pollinators are particularly vital to the U.S. agricultural system because they enable the production of foods essential to a healthy diet, such as fruits and vegetables. They are pillars of human nutrition and, by extension, of a thriving economy. But despite the services these species provide, they are threatened with extinction. Pollinators are, in fact, being decimated by our lifestyles and the numerous pesticides currently used in agriculture. In the United States, nearly one-third of managed honeybee colonies die each winter, and wild populations are faring no better. A general decline in these populations—which are so vital to life on Earth—is thus being observed. To quantitatively measure the impact of these pollinators on the development of various U.S. states, based on universally recognized metrics, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University assigned them an economic weight. Using publicly available data on each state’s total agricultural production and its cost, in conjunction with field studies on insects, they determined the economic dependence of U.S. agriculture on pollination and “worker” insects for each state, while also identifying areas where wild pollinator populations are declining.

The result: the economic value of pollinators totaled $34 billion in the United States in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available.

That is much more than previously thought. But this economic value is not evenly distributed across the country. For example, 20 percent of U.S. states account for 80 percent of the total economic value attributed to wild and domesticated pollinators. Unfortunately, the areas that depend most on pollinators, economically speaking, are the very same ones that provide them with poor-quality habitat and food sources. In some cases, farmers even buy or rent bee colonies to help pollinate their fields when there aren’t enough wild bees to do the job. These regions are therefore key areas not only for the country’s economy and agri-food sector but also for conservation efforts. Highly dependent on the pollination services provided by insects, they would be particularly vulnerable if wild pollinator populations continued to decline as they are currently doing. This mapping of pollination needs and pollinator deficits can be used, in particular, to target conservation efforts in order to ensure sustainable production in the country’s main agricultural areas. The study also emphasizes the need for farmers to adopt practices that are more respectful of bee health and to try to slow the decline of bee colonies, notably by providing a preserved habitat that is more conducive to their establishment and development.