Farming with alternative pollinators increases yields and incomes of cucumber and sour cherry

Abstract

Pollinator decline is acknowledged worldwide and constitutes a major subject of environmental research. Nevertheless, farmers' efforts to protect pollinators in agricultural lands remain very limited, in particular if no compensation scheme is applicable. Current research focuses on measuring pollinator diversity in different landscapes, but research on income gains, due to habitat enhancement and high pollinator diversity, may have greater potential to induce farmers' field management changes. In 2012, it was suggested for the first time that farmers' motivation would be triggered if the demonstration was made that enhancing pollinator habitats, with a novel approach of farming with alternative pollinators, can increase yield and income. In 2013-2014, therefore, a 18month-pilot project was set on a participatory basis in Uzbekistan, to test this farming with alternative pollinators approach on field and orchard crops. The practicability and the potential of the approach were tested in collaboration with seven smallholders, two commercial farmers, and two schools. We analyzed the yield and insect diversity (pollinators, predators, and pests) of seven cucumber fields in the Parkent district and four orchards of sour cherry in the Boysun district in Uzbekistan. Here we show that the fields with enhanced habitats faced higher diversity of pollinators and predators, but less pests than control fields. Furthermore, the farming with alternative pollinators approach doubled the yield of sour cherry in 2014 and highly increased the income from cucumber in 2013. In 2014, however, a climatic disaster influenced the results on cucumber in Parkent district. Ultimately, 94% of the farmers were willing to enhance pollinator habitats after being informed of these higher-yield figures. If more projects confirm that farming with alternative pollinators creates an economically self-sustaining incentive for farmers to improve habitats, this approach could contribute considerably to global pollinator protection and food security.

Do we realize the full impact of pollinator loss on other ecosystem services and the challenges for any restoration in terrestrial areas?

“…Alternative to individual counterproductive coping strategies, governments can enhance their policies and can start timely restoration of agricultural lands for pollinators e.g. by introducing farming with alternative pollinators (FAP; Christmann & Aw‐Hassan ; Christmann et al ; Christmann ) or paying rewards for seeding wildflower strips.…”

“…Pollinators are in decline on all continents (except Antarctica, which does not host them; Hassan et al ) due to habitat loss, agricultural practices, climate change (Biesmeijer et al ; Burkle et al ; Dirzo et al ; Goulson ; IPBES ; Potts et al , ; Hallmann et al ; Ashbacher ; Glaum ; Hallmann et al ; Sánchez‐Bayo & Wyckhuys ; Schweiger et al ), and common lack of knowledge among farmers (Kasina et al ; Munyuli ; Hanes et al ; Christmann et al ). Dainese et al () showed that richness of service providers such as pollinators has higher positive impacts than their abundance.…”

“…Potts et al () clearly stated there is “a mismatch […] between scientific evidence of impact and conservation, and management responses.” Since most wild pollinators have a limited radius of activity (on average 50–2,000 m around their nests) (Kohler et al ) pollinator protection depends on local management and action by hundreds of millions of local farmers and protagonists in nearly the entire terrestrial area of our planet, especially in agricultural landscapes (Christmann et al ).…”

“…However, we lack research on villagers' readiness to take action without rewards (Christmann et al ). Also, scalable, economically self‐sustaining approaches for pollinator protection are rare (Kleijn et al ; Christmann ).…”

Enhancing Legume Ecosystem Services through an Understanding of Plant–Pollinator Interplay

“…Farming with Alternative Pollinators is a new approach with a limited number of field experiments in Uzbekistan and currently Morocco. The pilot project in Uzbekistan (main crops: cucumber and sour cherry; partly faba bean and partly sainfoin in the habitat zone; Christmann et al, 2014 , in review) did on-farm trials mainly with smallholders, because in general they use less or no agricultural chemicals as they prefer low production costs and healthy food for their own families. Trials with smallholders can develop first data to convince commercial farmers too.…”