dhw's obsession with 'humans plus food'; current studies (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 29, 2023, 20:17 (243 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, August 29, 2023, 20:22

A new review study:

https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00480-2?utm_medium=email&_hsm...

"The global decline of pollinators endangers the reproduction of 90% of wild plants and the yield of 85% of the most important crops globally, thereby contributing to 35% of overall crop production. Recent estimates of global values of crop pollination range from US$195 billion to US$387 billion annually. Although data on regionally important crops are often lacking, pollination services are essential for food security, in particular for the 2 billion smallholders with their <2 ha farms, representing 83% of the global agricultural population.3 Many of these smallholders are malnourished and live in developing countries, while pollinator-dependent crops provide vital micronutrients to human health. Yield gaps on small fields with less than 2 ha can be much better closed by enhanced flower visitation than those of large farms. Agroforestry is among the most pollinator-friendly agroecosystems, often operated by smallholders and providing diverse resources on a small scale. The still-limited research focus on tropical smallholders and their locally grown crops has led to a presumed underestimation of biotic pollination services for crops and many other plants that are of essential importance for subsistence communities.2 New techniques to improve ecological intensification are needed, with a focus on smart farming for crop production, largely independent from agrochemicals and benefitting also further ecological processes such as biotic pest regulation, soil fertility, and nutrient cycling.

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"Small populations in both plants and pollinators are extremely vulnerable to ecosystem changes, to the extent that maintaining or restoring degraded populations can be incredibly challenging. Huang et al. focus on this poorly studied topic of plant-reward-pollinator feedbacks and their potential to induce extinction cascades and community-wide collapse in plant-pollinator networks, endangering global food security". (my bold)

Comment: the loss of pollinators is a potential disaster. This article describes some possible remedies. The series of articles I have presented show how tight the supply of food is for eight million-plus and growing human population. I view this as representing a goal for God as He designed the system of evolution that produced us. As we are now tending to outgrow our food supply, dhw reminds us folk are starving, so he recognizes the problem. But he denies God had this goal. Not surprising.