Michael Cox wrote:
F Agricola wrote:
Scientists have been looking at a pollinator replacement if the introduced European honey bee gets eliminated from the environment – the humble bush fly, along with other native species, appear to be real contenders:
The "what if..." scenario here is rather absurd. No where in the world have local populations of honey bees been driven extinct by diseases, or by modern industrial agricultural practices. The worst that has happened is local populations temporarily crash then recover. This is bad for beekeepers and farmers, but the species is fine.
In our varied climate, the European Bee needs to compete with a lot of other pollinators and predators, not forgetting weather extremes, reduction in forage due to climate and bush fires, unexplained colony collapse, etc. We have droughts that can last for a decade, so the possibility of the ‘perfect storm’ is always near.
The article is all about R & D and addressing potential threats, for example, Australia doesn’t have the Varroa mite or the diseases it vectors into colonies. It is obviously aimed at economics - environmentally, the loss of introduced bees would not be an issue as their place would be filled by natives, hence the article.
The article was posted to make others aware of the alternatives if they observe a decline in bees or other local pollinators. This would affect local food production, especially those reliant on the home (
Permaculture) garden.
Also, it’s important to note that Australia does not subsidise farmers, unlike the UK (pre-Brexit), and many other countries, where farmers apparently get upwards of 50% of their income via different UK and EU schemes.
So, any threat to competitiveness is very important, particularly when the playing field has a significant slope to the advantage of other nations. A key selling point for our produce is its perception of being ‘clean and green’ by our close neighbours in Asia; together with value-adding, that is obviously a major selling point and competitive advantage – we don’t have BSE, FMD or Rabies.
Another example of a threat mitigation strategy is our National Bee Pest Surveillance Program – an early warning network of ‘sentinel hives’ located throughout Australia, particularly at high risk sites around shipping and air ports, to test for quarantine incursions.
If/when the UK leaves the EU, and most likely loses that +50% edge, it would be very unwise of farmers and their government not to be proactive in all avenues of threat minimisation e.g. the cost of BSE alone was enormous for both the UK and USA, not forgetting the effects on the poor animals that contracted it.