A third of the world's food depends on pollinating insects

A figure that surprises every time it's mentioned

Roughly 35 percent of global agricultural production intended for human food depends, at least partially, on pollination by insects, primarily bees, but also butterflies, beetles, and certain flies, according to joint assessments by the FAO and IPBES. This figure, often quoted but rarely fully absorbed into our everyday relationship with food, deserves to be explained in detail to understand just how much our plates depend on quiet, tiny work carried out billions of times a day around the world. It is one of those statistics that sounds abstract until you start listing the foods on your own table that would simply vanish without it.

There is something dizzying about realizing that a third of what we eat depends on the wingbeats of insects we barely notice, often seen as mere nuisances rather than essential players in our global food security.

A role that goes far beyond honey

When people think of bees, they usually associate their activity with honey, a much-loved product, certainly valuable, but one that represents only a tiny fraction of their real contribution to our food supply. The real stakes lie in their role as pollinators: by carrying pollen from one flower to another, they enable the fertilization of countless cultivated plants, a free and invisible ecological service that innumerable fruit, vegetable, and oilseed crops around the world depend on.

This pollination service applies to crops as varied as apples, almonds, tomatoes, coffee, and cocoa, foods and raw materials we consume daily without necessarily connecting them to the silent work of pollinators that made their initial production possible in fields and orchards around the world. Grocery store shelves, in that sense, are a kind of hidden monument to an entire branch of the animal kingdom most shoppers never think about.

An invisible but vital exchange between plants and insects

Pollination rests on a mutually beneficial exchange between flowering plants and the insects that visit them: the plant offers nectar and pollen as food, while the insect, moving from flower to flower, unintentionally carries pollen grains that enable fertilization and, therefore, the formation of fruits and seeds. This mechanism, which emerged tens of millions of years ago in evolutionary history, is one of the most fundamental relationships in the living world.

Without the intervention of pollinating insects, many cultivated plants would produce far fewer fruits, or none at all in some cases, which would have direct and immediate consequences for global agricultural yields and, by extension, for the availability and price of many foods we consume every day without giving it a second thought. Some growers have already experienced this firsthand, watching orchards underperform in years when local pollinator activity dropped for reasons that were not always immediately clear.

Different species for different roles

While bees hold a central place in discussions about pollination, they are far from the only players in this essential ecological service. Butterflies, certain beetles, and various species of flies also contribute to pollinating many plants, each having developed particular affinities with certain plant species over the course of the joint evolution between plants and insects.

This diversity of pollinating species is itself an important factor of resilience for agricultural ecosystems: the more numerous and varied the species involved, the more robust the pollination system as a whole remains in the face of disruptions that might affect one particular species rather than the entire ecological network involved. Relying on a single species would leave the entire system exposed to a single point of failure, which is precisely what conservation biologists warn against.

Three main causes identified by research

The global decline of pollinator populations, documented by numerous scientific studies, is mainly explained by three converging factors: the intensive use of pesticides in modern agriculture, the loss of natural habitat linked to urbanization and agricultural intensification, and the effects of climate change, which disrupts flowering cycles and the activity periods of pollinating insects in many regions of the world.

What strikes me most about this situation is how several distinct threats add up and reinforce one another, making the plight of pollinators far more worrying than if a single isolated factor were to blame.

An economic threat valued at hundreds of billions of dollars

This decline represents a major economic and food security threat, valued by researchers at several hundred billion dollars a year worldwide, factoring in the value of crops that depend directly or indirectly on insect pollination. This staggering figure illustrates just how much this free ecological service, often taken for granted, actually represents a considerable economic contribution to global agriculture.

International bodies such as IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, regularly stress the urgency of preserving these pollinator populations, whose decline could have direct repercussions on food security in many regions of the world in the decades ahead. Their reports are routinely cited by agricultural ministries when drafting long-term food security strategies, which shows how seriously the warning is now being taken at the policy level.

A vulnerability rarely perceived by the public

This massive dependency of our global food system on a group of species as fragile as pollinating insects reveals a structural vulnerability often unrecognized by the general public, who tend to take food availability for granted, disconnected from the ecological balances that actually make it possible further up the production chain.

This awareness is nonetheless growing, driven by awareness campaigns and scientific studies increasingly covered by mainstream media, which are helping people understand that protecting pollinators is as much a food security issue as it is a matter of broader biodiversity conservation. Documentaries, school programs, and local farming cooperatives have all played a part in shifting how the public talks about the issue over the past decade.

Solutions already being implemented in several regions

Faced with this situation, several initiatives have been launched to try to curb the decline of pollinators, ranging from reducing the use of certain particularly harmful pesticides to creating ecological corridors that encourage wildflowers along the edges of intensively farmed fields, as well as supporting urban beekeeping in many major cities around the world.

These initiatives, still modest on a global scale, seem to me to be heading in the right direction, but they will likely require a deeper shift in our farming practices to truly reverse the current downward trend.

Fruit, coffee, and cocoa: entire industries at stake

Every time I drink coffee in the morning these days, I find myself thinking a little more often about the quiet work of the insects that made its production possible, a reflex I didn't have before looking seriously into this subject.

Some crops depend almost exclusively on animal pollination to produce meaningful yields, notably almonds, whose global production relies heavily on colonies of domesticated bees transported specifically for this seasonal task. Coffee and cocoa, two globally consumed commodities, also see their yields significantly improved by the presence of pollinating insects in growing regions.

A marked decline in pollinator populations in these producing regions could therefore have direct repercussions on the availability and price of these products worldwide, a scenario agricultural economists are watching closely in their long-term projections for these strategic commodity chains, which remain sensitive to climate volatility. A bad pollination season, layered on top of drought or heat stress, can compound losses in ways that are difficult to reverse within a single growing cycle.

Directly measurable agricultural yields

Comparative studies conducted on agricultural plots with and without a sufficient presence of pollinators have shown significant yield gaps, sometimes exceeding several tens of percent depending on the crop studied. This quantitative data, gathered by agronomy researchers, considerably strengthens the scientific credibility of the 35 percent figure put forward by the FAO and IPBES.

These field measurements also help identify the crops most vulnerable to a continued decline in pollinators, valuable information for steering agricultural policy toward better accounting for this fundamental ecological dependency, still too often overlooked in large-scale agricultural planning decisions. Some agricultural extension programs have begun using this data to advise farmers directly on which fields would benefit most from added pollinator habitat.

Simple actions at the individual level

Beyond large-scale agricultural policy, several individual actions can help support local pollinator populations, such as planting nectar-rich flowers suited to the local climate, reducing pesticide use in home gardens, or installing insect hotels that support the reproduction of certain lesser-known wild species beyond the traditional domesticated honeybee.

These individual initiatives, though modest in isolation, can have a significant cumulative effect when multiplied across a neighborhood, a city, or an entire region, a principle many biodiversity conservation groups are now trying to promote among the public through regular awareness campaigns, in schools as well as local communities.

The growing role of urban beekeeping

The rise of urban beekeeping in many major cities around the world reflects this growing awareness: hives installed on rooftops or in public parks help support local bee populations while raising city dwellers' awareness of how important these insects are to the entire global food chain.

This still relatively recent trend reflects a gradual shift in how pollinators are collectively perceived, now seen more often as valuable allies worth protecting rather than as mere harmless insects one occasionally comes across in a garden or urban park. Local honey sold by neighborhood beekeepers has, in a small way, become a symbol of this changing relationship between city dwellers and the insects that quietly support their food supply.

A free but indispensable ecological service

In short, roughly 35 percent of global agricultural production intended for human food depends, at least partially, on pollination by insects, a free and often invisible ecological service that relies on species now threatened by pesticides, habitat loss, and climate change. This decline represents an economic threat valued at several hundred billion dollars a year, according to estimates from the FAO and IPBES.

This story shows just how much our global food system rests on fragile ecological balances, often invisible in daily life, yet whose preservation remains absolutely essential to guaranteeing food security for future generations everywhere in the world.

An invitation to change how we see insects

This overlooked dependency on pollinating insects invites us to reconsider our relationship with these species, too often seen as mere nuisances rather than as indispensable allies of our daily diet. Every action taken to preserve their natural habitat, whether individual or collective, helps sustain an ecological balance on which, quite literally, a third of what we eat every day depends.

This awareness, still recent on a historical scale, could well become one of the most decisive environmental issues of the coming decades, given how directly the repercussions of a continued pollinator decline would affect our global food security, from European orchards to the tropical coffee and cocoa plantations that fuel our everyday consumption habits.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

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