i'm just going to POST THIS AS LOUD AS I CAN and crush all arguments-MONSANTO=root of all evil.

[farminator3000]

289. then why aren't you talking about genetic diversity or all of the OTHER pollinators also dying?

i read the FAO analysis (a science paper, by an NIH statistics wonk) your teacher based his 'opinion' on... (delaplane's NOT a scientific paper at all)

An invitational editorial first appearing in the newsletter of the British Bee Keepers Association

Keith S. Delaplane, Professor, Dept. Entomology,

the main problem is right here, where he throws up a bunch of stuff that was not in the NIH 'report' he cited-

About 75% of the world’s crops benefit to some degree from animal pollination; only 10% of that 75% depend fully on animal pollination. A second explanation is that pollinator-dependent crops tend to have lower average production levels than non-pollinated crops. One can summarize from this paper that most of the calories that sustain human life derive from non-pollinator-dependent crops. This in no way denigrates the importance of pollination at the local level. One need only imagine the economic fallout of a pollinator crash on the California almond industry or Costa Rican coffee. But is it true, sensu stricto, that human life depends on bee pollination? No.

i mean, he literally pulls that right out of his butt. he even gets the 5% wrong its actually 3%.

it says absolutely nothing of the sort in the paper.
he also goes straight from 'animal pollination' to 'bee pollination' in the same paragraph, rendering his assertion meaningless.

i'll post an actual FAO link after this bit from the NIH paper, which really seems to be some sort of statistical maze created by some people who have never planted a single plant before. i don't disagree with it, i just think it is way over complicated. plus i can't seem to open the excel sheet with all the data, so i'm doubting their 'selection' of crops.

anyway,
what the (very long) paper actually said was-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2701761/

Key Results

The expected direct reduction in total agricultural production in the absence of animal pollination ranged from 3 to 8 %, with smaller impacts on agricultural production diversity. The percentage increase in cultivated area needed to compensate for these deficits was several times higher, particularly in the developing world, which comprises two-thirds of the land devoted to crop cultivation globally. Crops with lower yield growth tended to have undergone greater expansion in cultivated area. Agriculture has become more pollinator-dependent over time, and this trend is more pronounced in the developing than developed world.

Conclusions

We propose that pollination shortage will intensify demand for agricultural land, a trend that will be more pronounced in the developing world. This increasing pressure on supply of agricultural land could significantly contribute to global environmental change.

INTRODUCTION

Animal-mediated pollination contributes to the sexual reproduction of over 90 % of the approximately 250 000 species of modern angiosperms (Kearns et al., 1998). This interaction diffusely affects human survival through its roles in sustaining much biodiversity on Earth and contributing to the integrity of most terrestrial ecosystems. However, we also depend more directly on this interaction, because many agricultural crops rely to some degree on pollinators for setting the seeds or fruits that we consume, or the seeds we sow or breed. A now well-known estimate proposed that about one-third of our food, including animal products, derives from animal-pollinated, mostly bee-pollinated, crops (McGregor, 1976). This estimate has recently been confirmed by Klein et al. (2007), although animal production was excluded. The diversity of crops that depend on animal pollination provides still more impressive estimates. For instance, biotic pollination improves the fruit or seed quality or quantity of about 70 % of 1330 tropical crops (Roubik, 1995) and 85 % of 264 crops cultivated in Europe (Williams, 1994). These figures are not obviously biased by the inclusion of many minor crops from a production viewpoint, as pollinating insects increase fruit or seed quality or quantity of 39 of the 57 major crops worldwide (Klein et al., 2007). Therefore, the production and diversity of agriculture seem to depend to a large extent on biotic pollination, particularly on the service provided by the honey-bee (Apis mellifera), the single most important pollinator species, and a plethora of wild bee species.

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Therefore, the effect of an increasing pollination shortage might manifest in a disproportionate increase in demand for agricultural land, which is surely mediated by the much higher market value of the production derived from pollinator-dependent than non-dependent crops (Gallai et al., 2009). Although this effect is more subtle than the collapse in production implicit in the language of the ‘pollination crisis’ (Allen-Wardell et al., 1998; Kremen and Ricketts, 2000; Westerkamp and Gottsberger, 2002), such increased pressure on supply of agricultural land could nevertheless contribute significantly to global environmental change.

Change over time and differences between socioeconomic regions

Several indicators reveal an increase in pollinator dependency in agriculture over time in both the developed and the developing world. We recently estimated that the percentage of crop land devoted to pollinator-dependent crops in the developed world increased from 18·2 % in 1961 to 34·9 % in 2006, and from 23·4 to 32·8 % in the developing world (Aizen et al., 2008).

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here are some United Nations links, which are more informative and less biased than the 'editorial' you posted-

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)4 estimates that
out of some 100 crop species which provide 90% of food worldwide, 71 of these
are bee-pollinated. In Europe alone, 84% of the 264 crop species are animalpollinated
and 4 000 vegetable varieties exist thanks to pollination by bees5. The
production value of one tonne of pollinator-dependent crop is approximately five
times higher than one of those crop categories that do not depend on insects6.
Has a “pollinator crisis” really been occurring during recent decades, or are these
concerns just another sign of global biodiversity decline? Several studies have
highlighted different factors leading to the pollinators’ decline that have been
observed around the world. This bulletin considers the latest scientific findings
and analyses possible answers to this question. As the bee group is the most
important pollinator worldwide, this bulletin focuses on the instability of wild and
managed bee populations, the driving forces, potential mitigating measures and
recommendations.
http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/Global_Bee_Colony_Disorder_and_Threats_insect_pollinators.pdf

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Scientists are warning that without profound changes to the way human-beings manage the planet, declines in pollinators needed to feed a growing global population are likely to continue.

. New kinds of virulent fungal pathogens-which can be deadly to bees and other key pollinating insects-are now being detected world-wide, migrating from one region to another as a result of shipments linked to globalization and rapidly growing international trade

. Meanwhile an estimated 20,000 flowering plant species, upon which many bee species depend for food, could be lost over the coming decades unless conservation efforts are stepped up

. Increasing use of chemicals in agriculture, including 'systemic insecticides' and those used to coat seeds, is being found to be damaging or toxic to bees. Some can, in combination, be even more potent to pollinators, a phenomenon known as the 'cocktail effect'

. Climate change, left unaddressed, may aggravate the situation, in various ways including by changing the flowering times of plants and shifting rainfall patterns. This may in turn affect the quality and quantity of nectar supplies.

These are among the findings of a new report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which has brought together and analyzed the latest science on collapsing bee colonies.

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Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century. The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees".

"Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature's services in a world of close to seven billion people".
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=664&ArticleID=6923&l=en&t=long