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organic farms save the bees



The paper below shows the essential need for organic farms to preserve
pollinators. However, as GM insect resistance spreads to all crops as is
happening in canola and corn, survival of bees may be in question. Those
promoting the propaganda that organic farms are useless or even
dangerous should be reminded of the facts, even though they will
continue to ignore reality.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 99, Issue 26, 16812-16816, December 24,
2000
Crop pollination from native bees at risk from agricultural intensification


Claire Kremen, , Neal M. Williams, and Robbin W. Thor

Ecosystem services are critical to human survival; in selected cases,
maintaining these services provides a powerful argument for conserving
biodiversity. Yet, the ecological and economic underpinnings of most
services are poorly understood, impeding their conservation and
management. For centuries, farmers have imported colonies of European
honey bees (Apis mellifera) to fields and orchards for pollination
services. These colonies are becoming increasingly scarce, however,
because of diseases, pesticides, and other impacts. Native bee
communities also provide pollination services, but the amount they
provide and how this varies with land management practices are unknown.
Here, we document the individual species and aggregate community
contributions of native bees to crop pollination, on farms that varied
both in their proximity to natural habitat and management type (organic
versus conventional). On organic farms near natural habitat, we found
that native bee communities could provide full pollination services even
for a crop with heavy pollination requirements (e.g., watermelon,
Citrullus lanatus), without the intervention of managed honey bees. All
other farms, however, experienced greatly reduced diversity and
abundance of native bees, resulting in insufficient pollination services
from native bees alone. We found that diversity was essential for
sustaining the service, because of year-to-year variation in community
composition. Continued degradation of the agro-natural landscape will
destroy this "free" service, but conservation and restoration of bee
habitat are potentially viable economic alternatives for reducing
dependence on managed honey bees.

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