Pollinators Are Essential for the Environment

by Jordan Bufford, age 13

A pollinator is an insect or small animal that helps move one part of a flower to another. Fertilizing a plant helps make seeds, fruits, and new plants. Some plants can even pollinate themselves by using wind and water to transfer pollen grains through one part of the flower to the other.

Pollinators add $217 billion to the global economy. Honey bees play a big role themselves, being responsible for more than $20 billion of crop production globally. Pollinators altogether are more important than we think. Almost 75% of plants on Earth are pollinated by insects and animals. This also comes out as 1,200 food crops and 180,000 plants that help stabilize our soil, clean our air, give us oxygen, and support wildlife. Honey bees contribute between $1.2 and $5.4 billion $20 billion in the U.S.

Although pollinators have been beneficial over the years, their populations have decreased due to pollution. Pollution and changes in climate patterns shift and shrink the pollinator populations.

Since pollinators contribute to the economy and to our everyday lives. Many experts are concerned about their shrinking populations. If the decline continues, experts warn that many kinds of food crops would become hard to grow.

[Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Bayer; Pollinator.org]