Bees, butterflies face extinction, threatening Kenya food production

Kenyan farmers are driving bees, wasps, butterflies and other pollinators to extinction, consequently threatening food supply.

About 75 per cent of food crops depend on pollination by insects and other animals. At the end of every rainy season, flowers blossom, marking the start of pollination in plants.

The flowers attract pollinators, mostly bees, moths, wasps and butterflies that visit from coffee trees and tomatoes to watermelon stalks, which collect nectar and pollen.

Without these bees, the chances of cross-pollination dim, drastically reducing food production . And that is what is worrying agriculturalists as the pollinators vanish from Kenyan farms, threatening to push food production even lower.

Dr Wanja Kinuthia, an entomologist and the head of the Kenya Pollination Project said poor agricultural practices such as “slash and burn” and climate change are killing bees and other animals. Mites are also attacking the insects.

“Excessive use of pesticides, deforestation, intense tillage of land is causing the decline of bees,” she said.

Dr Kinuthia said when farmers spray too much pesticide or enough but during the wrong time, the nectar is contaminated which affects the bees’ health. The bees also avoid the contaminated nectar hence they starve to death.

“Farmers cut and clear weeds with the ignorant assumption that they are maintaining cleanliness. The slashing and burning of trees and flowers leave the bees homeless and with no food,” she said.

Then there is the mistaken identity of the large carpenter bee, which is killed by farmers assuming it is a pest.

“We are a society that are cruel to animals generally. People lack knowledge on the importance of such insects. Just leave a small patch of untilled land in your farm for the bees, or some of those organic waste to act as ‘bee hotels’ for bees and other pollinators,” said Dr Kinuthia.

Kenya hosts more than 1,000 different species of pollinators— butterflies, flies, moths, wasps, beetles and birds.

Dr Dino Martin, an entomologist and director of Impala Research Centre in Laikipia said the numbers should even be higher because there are plants that need 3,000 to 4,000 visits by more than 50 different pollinators for pollination to take place.

“The plant produces better, heavier and healthier harvest after pollination,” he said.
Dr Martins said farmers in Baringo, Kerio Valley and Kakamega recorded bumper harvest of sunflower, passion fruits and cashew nuts, thanks to bee-saving farming practices.

Without the bees, the male and the female parts of the plant would never interact, the plant would never “get pregnant” and there would be no harvest from the plant. There are plants like maize, that are self-pollinating, being aided by wind.

Eighty three farmers from Kilimambogo conducted a trial by denying bees access to vegetables in their farms, and the crop produced nothing at the end of three months.

“Some section of the crop was covered with a nets to prevent bee pollination. Results showed that bee pollination is a must for fruit and seed development in crotalaria, cleome, watermelons, courgettes and pumpkins,” said Eric Muthama, the director of Farmers Consult. Loise Mbithe, a small-scale farmer said her earnings increased by nearly 50 per cent when she learnt to embrace farming practices that encouraged bees to buzz around her farm.

“I used to get 50 fruits from my mango tree before I knew how to attract and keep bees in my farm which I would sell each for Sh8, now I get about 90 fruits that are bigger and better looking which I sell for Sh10,” she said.

Ms Mbithe planted a hedgerow around the farm where bees can stay and now uses chemical pesticides sparingly.

In Kiambu, coffee farmers improved the yields, taste and aroma of beans after attracting more pollinators to their farms, a study published in an Asian journal of agricultural sciences notes.

In Kakamega, green pepper (capsicum) that had been pollinated had the most seeds while the self-pollinated crops were the thinnest and ugliest with few seeds in a pod, International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) said.

Muo Kasina, an economic entomologist at Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) said that the drop in pollinators is costing the agribusiness billions of shillings every year.

Attributed to polination

Dr Kasina said the declining population of bees is also impoverishing farmers who harvest less and low-quality produce.

He said 40 per cent of crop produced by small-scale farmers in Kakamega estimated at 2.4 million euros was attributed to pollination.

The crops had been pollinated by wild bees inhabiting the vast Kakamega Forest, the last large less fragmented rainforest ecosystem in Kenya which is thee size of 34,000 football pitches. The population of bees has also declined because of massive deforestation.

Farmers are now being urged to leave patches of native vegetation amongst their crops as nesting sites for bees and also prolong the period in which forage is available for pollinators.

The same indigenous trees also act as a shield against the negative aspects of climate change that harm bees.

Declining bee population is a global problem. In the developed world, it is taking place in epic proportions, threatening livelihoods and food reserves.

Agriculturalists have recorded shortages of honeybees, butterflies and bats. There are concerns that the drop in pollinators is a threat to nature’s ability to supply enough nectar-loving animals to service crops.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says that 75 per cent of all food crops depend on pollination, adding that the total economic value of pollination worldwide is 153 billion euros.

READ: Flowering plants map a boon for bee keepers

Of this figure, 50 billion euros can be earned from vegetable and fruits, edible oil crops, coffee and nuts if the crops are grown near pollinators.

There are a number of crops in Kenya that rely heavily on pollination such as legumes (beans, nuts, peas); horticultural produce such as vegetables, tomatoes, onions, passion fruit, apples, citrus.

These crops are among Kenya’s top foreign exchange earners. Horticultural produce (cut flowers, fruits and vegetables) earned Kenya Sh100.9 billion and coffee fetched Sh20.5 billion at the export markets last year, according to the latest data from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), underscoring the importance of pollinators to boost yields and quality so as to fetch higher prices in the export market.

But it’s not all gloom and doom. To increase number of bees, Icipe’s Africa Reference Lab has started selectively breeding bees with farmers receiving training on ways to woo pollinators to their farms.
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