Do farmers care about pollinators? A cross-site comparison of farmers’ perceptions, knowledge, and management practices for pollinator-dependent crops

ABSTRACT

Pollinator conservation has become a key challenge to achieve sustainable agricultural landscapes and safeguard food supplies. Considering the potential negative effects of pollinator decline, international efforts have been developed to promote agri-environmental measures and pollinator-friendly management practices. However, little effort has been devoted to farmers’ perceptions and knowledge about pollinators, or to farmers’ role in enhancing pollination. We administered 376 face-to-face questionnaires in four areas of Spain with different dominant pollinator-dependent crops, to assess the factors behind farmers’ perceptions, knowledge, and practices adopted to promote pollination. Overall, 92.7% of the respondents recognized that pollinator insects are necessary for crop production, and 73.4% perceived pollinator decline in their farms. We found that farmers had moderate knowledge about pollinators (6.1 ± 1.8, on a 1–10 scale). The most applied practices to promote pollinators were reducing insecticide spraying (53.2% of respondents), diversifying crops (42.8%), and increasing fallow fields (39.1%). Factors such as education, age, concern about the pollinator crisis, and professional dedication to agriculture strongly influenced farmers’ knowledge and current application of pollinator-friendly practices. Implications of our results for the ongoing reform of the Common Agricultural Policy are discussed, highlighting the need to increase engagement and trust of farmers through communication and technical assistance.

KEYWORDS:

• Cider-apple orchards
• farmers’ perception
• horticultural crops
• pear orchards
• pollination
• sunflower crops
• sustainable agroecosystems

Acknowledgments

We thank Alicia Martínez and Marina Vara for field assistance, and all respondents who dedicated their time to respond to the questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union FEDER INTERREG SUDOE program (Project POLL-OLE-GI, SOE1/P5/E0129), MINECO and FEDER (INIA-RTA2017-00051-C02-00 to MM and JAS), and a FPI-INIA CPD2015-0059 fellowship to RMS. This study also received funding from: (1) the Simbiosis Api- project Agro funded by the European Union, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment and the Madrid Regional Government under the Rural Development Programme (RDP-CM 2014-2020) (2) the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement N 81819, and (3) the R&D projects for young researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid by providing funds for this research through SAVIA project (ref SI1/PJI/2019-00444).