Without bees, the world would face a food crisis

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has stated that if bees were to disappear, we'd be facing a world food crisis because 84% of food crops depend on pollination by bees .

As part of the celebration of World Bee Day , the FAO is rasing awareness about the importance of bees and cross-pollination.

For instance, they explain that while some crops, like beans and mangoes, self-pollinate there are others like asparagus, mustard, and sesame which see an increase in production when they are pollinated by insects. However, there are those, like melons, green peas, and sunflowers, which depend entirely on pollination by insects.

In 2016 the UN agreed to establish May 20th as World Bee Day, upon the request of Slovenia, with the support of Apimondia and the International Federation of Beekeepers' Associations. Their goal was to raise awareness about the important contribution of bees in our food production and to the balance of our ecosystems.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food ( SAGARPA ) detailed that in Mexico there are over 2,000 types of bees, which makes Mexico the country with the widest bee diversity in the Americas – however, the Ministry stated that not all bee types produce honey or are capable of pollination.

The Ministry also informed that honey is still the main sweetener for many communities in the world and thus, has become a profitable business.

Apiculture, or bee-keeping , helps people obtain products such as honey, royal jelly, propolis, and pollen. And in addition of being used as a sweetener, honey has other uses, such as a relief product for coughs, burns, and wounds as it kills bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Without bees, the world would face a food crisis

(Bee – Photo: Carlos Zepeda/EFE)

According to Mexico's Agricultural and Fisheries Information Services, domestic annual production in Mexico in 2017 was equal to 50.995 tonnes of honey , of which 38% was produced in four states of the south of Mexico: Yucatán, Campeche, Chiapas, and Quintana Roo.

According to foreign trade data, in 2017, honey exports equaled to 27.7 tonnes, that is, USD$ 93.7 million.

Mexican honey is considered a high-quality product and 68% of total national production is exported. Our top exporters are the United States , the United Kingdom , and Germany .

“Hotels” to protect wild bees in western Mexico

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