{"id":27067,"date":"2020-06-08T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T04:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=27067"},"modified":"2020-06-07T23:46:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T03:46:14","slug":"report-finds-monocropping-and-toxic-pesticides-threaten-brazils-native-bees-as-countrys-president-challenges-environmental-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/06\/report-finds-monocropping-and-toxic-pesticides-threaten-brazils-native-bees-as-countrys-president-challenges-environmental-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"Report Finds Monocropping and Toxic Pesticides Threaten Brazil\u2019s Native Bees as Country\u2019s President Challenges Environmental Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"(Beyond Pesticides,<\/em> June 8, 2020) Brazil is home to more than 300 native bee species \u2014 many of them stingless \u2014 that help pollinate the nation\u2019s valuable agricultural crops and provide other important environmental services. Yet, chemical-intensive agriculture\u2019s intensive pesticide use and devotion to monocropping are a serious threat to these bees, Mongabay<\/em> reports.<\/a> Beyond Pesticides maintains that elimination of such pesticides is key to protecting critical pollinators<\/a>, ensuring a nontoxic food supply<\/a>, supporting ecosystems and biodiversity<\/a>, and ensuring safe working conditions for agricultural workers<\/a> and safety for rural residents. Organic, regenerative agricultural practices<\/a>, which often avoid monocropping, achieve all of these important goals. Advocates maintain that a transition to such practices is imperative in ensuring a far less toxic future for humans, other residents of Planet Earth, and Nature itself.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services<\/a> estimates the financial value of pollinators in Brazil, which include bees, moths, bats, butterflies, wasps, beetles, and other organisms, at roughly $8 billion annually. Most honey production in Brazil (and globally) comes from one species, Apis mellifera<\/em> \u2014 a hybrid of European and African species that arrived in the Americas in the early 17th<\/sup> century. A. mellifera<\/em> is still the dominant species used in managed bee businesses that are rented for agricultural pollination, but native beekeeping is an important, if minority, contributor to pollination, especially of native plants.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s native bees do produce honey, which has become treasured by high-end chefs. Native beekeeping is a growing enterprise and the source of other high-value products, such as propolis, bee pollen, beeswax, and royal jelly. In addition, research by Raoni da Silva Duarte, PhD<\/a>, of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo, indicates that some native bee species\u2019 honeys have antimicrobial effects that may prove useful in fighting pathogens that cause human diseases \u2014 suggesting potential medicinal utility.<\/p>\n

Native bees provide pollination function for agricultural and non-agricultural plants; some plants can be pollinated only by Brazil\u2019s stingless bees. Generosa Sousa Ribeiro, of the Melipona Beekeeping Department at the State University of Southwest Bahia, says,<\/a> \u201cSeveral plants need native species. They are chiefly responsible for pollinating native vegetation, providing cross-fertilization, which guarantees variability in plant species.\u201d Stingless bee colonies have proven especially useful to coffee, rapeseed, cucumber, passion fruit, apple, strawberry, and orange production. Stingless bees also provide a distinctive service: buzz pollination. Mongabay <\/em>reports<\/a>, \u201cWhen they land on flowers, many species, whether social or solitary, can vibrate by contracting their thoracic muscles, thus releasing pollen from the flowers and benefiting crops such as tomatoes and eggplants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jer\u00f4nimo Villas-B\u00f4as<\/a>, author of a manual on native, stingless beekeeping in Brazil, comments,<\/a> \u201cTheir appreciation is on the rise. Places that maintained the culture of native beekeeping can now make this an alternative for income generation.\u201d Native stingless bees are increasingly recognized as important \u201cgood actors\u201d for their provision of a variety of services for the environment. The expansion of native beekeeping in Brazil is helping to keep forests intact, as honey farmers tend to preserve the environment and restore areas used in their activity. This protects both ecosystems and biodiversity. Mr. Villas-B\u00f4as notes,<\/a> \u201cBeekeepers seek areas with preserved vegetation,\u201d Mr. Villas-B\u00f4as says. \u201cStingless beekeeping enables us to conserve the species involved and, indirectly, other animals in the ecosystem such as birds and mammals.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, chemical-intensive agriculture\u2019s use of monocropping and toxic pesticides threatens Brazil\u2019s native bees, having already reduced some populations. Monocropping \u2014 hundreds or thousands or millions of the same plant planted together \u2014 is not a thing found in nature. Robust biodiversity is a hallmark of healthy ecosystems; monocropping gives rise to pest problems because it eliminates the normal, balanced surround of a multitude of other interactive organisms \u2014 including those that would predate on pests. The practice thus invites use of pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers, which lead to degraded soil health.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Beyond Pesticides set out many of the downsides of monocropping<\/a> \u2014 despite its perceived advantages in terms of ease and economy for growers:<\/p>\n