Experts at the University of Reading have warned that more needs to be done to protect the UK’s variety of bee species, arguing that the future of food could well rely on bees that are currently undervalued in current assessments, in which policy makers hold faith.

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Economic assessments: the value of pollination

The warnings from Potts and his colleagues coincided with the publication of new research, which looked at the use of purely economic measures for assessing the natural environment and its conservation. The international study showed that some of the most endangered insect pollinators are considered virtually valueless by these simple metrics.

In the study, the pollinating work of wild bees was estimated to be worth more than $3,000 (£1,900) per hectare, though most of this work was done by a handful of common species, mainly types of bumblebees and solitary bees.

Most other species contribute very little in the way of clear, purely economic, benefits to human activity. In fact, only 2% of potential bee species are responsible for 80% of crop flower visits. This small number of bee varieties is vital for the production of UK crops such as oilseed rape, beans, apples and strawberries. Their work would cost more than £1 billion a year to replace in the UK alone.

However, Professor Potts urged caution in the interpretation of these findings. He warned that "Human history is full of examples of food crises caused by an over-reliance on a single crop or a dwindling number of species.”

Prof Potts continued, "In the insect world, we have already seen how the massive decline in honeybees in Britain has led to a reliance on wild bees to do much of the pollination. At one time, honeybees were enough to pollinate most of Britain's crops. Now, there are only enough to pollinate around a quarter of them. If we didn't have other species of bees to turn to, we would already be facing a food security catastrophe."

The number of honeybee colonies in Britain has more than halved since the 1950s, dropping from 250,000 in the middle of the last century to fewer than 100,000 today. Many British apple crops, for example, which previously relied on honeybees, are now almost exclusively pollinated by a handful of wild bee species.

Explaining the use of putting economic figures on environmental functions that benefit humans - the ‘ecosystem services’ approach, which is now widely used around the world, and well accepted by policy makers - Prof Potts said, ”Putting a cash value on ecosystem services is helpful to highlight to politicians and farmers just how important nature is to the bottom line.”

However, he cautioned that the values arrived at through these calculations shouldn’t be taken in isolation, or relied upon too heavily, pointing out that “Thinking purely about today's profits is pointless if it comes at the expense of the future sustainability of our countryside and our food supply."