A 20th century philosophy on this subject determined that the world, needing to produce more and more food to feed it's ever-growing population. It would have to farm on a much larger and more efficient, scale and took many routes to do so.
It turned smalls fields into much larger fields so that new machinery would operate more effectively, and profitably, by removing hedges, the natural homes for so much wild life.
It liberally sprayed crops with herbicides and in doing so destroyed much of the insect life responsible for plant pollination, and it also denied so much of the remaining hedgerow population its natural food source.
What about the bees you may wonder. Well, the bee population is dwindling too and bees alone cannot pollinate all the plants in the world. Indeed, they are only responsible for pollinating a small percentage of the total crops we consume. A bee enters the flower on a plant to get to the nectar at the very base of the flower and in doing so collects pollen on it’s hairy back. When it enters the next flower it brushes against the pollen within and the flower becomes pollinated.
However not all plants have flowers large enough to accommodate a bee and these are reliant on smaller insects to perform this function.
What insect does the most pollination? Although honey bees are thought to be a major contributor at least 1500 other insects within the UK play an important role. In other parts of the world birds, bats and lizards also play an important part.
A famous quote often attributed to Albert Einstein regarding bees goes like this: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
Okay, so Einsrein was a philosopher not a scientist but clearly governments throughout the world must find compromise and introduce policies to limit the use of chemicals which are damaging our waterways and water supplies. They must also reduce further practices such as burning off stubble that increase global warming.
Many thanks Ed for a most thought-provoking presentation.