Valuating pollination services for agriculture in Japan

Abstract

Pollination services are recognized as essential to agriculture and the reproduction of plant species. Recently, valuation of pollination services has come into the spotlight as a worldwide issue due to the decline of flower-visiting bees that contribute to crop production. Although the service is important to the agricultural sector, a comprehensive estimation of the value of available services is limited to services catering to food crop production provided by reared pollinators such as the European honeybee or the bumblebee in Japan. Therefore, we estimated the economic value of pollination services by both reared and wild pollinators to crop production nationwide. The value of the services was 470 billion JPY, which made up 8.3% of the total agricultural production of Japan in 2013. Services valued at ca. 100 billion, 5.3 billion, and 330 billion JPY were provided by reared honeybees, bumblebees, and wild pollinators, respectively. The major recipient crops of these services were fruits of the Rosaceae and fruit vegetables of the Cucurbitaceae and the Solanaceae. Some fruit-producing prefectures were highly dependent on pollination service for up to 27% of the total agricultural production of the area. Long-term trends of dependence on pollination services are increasing due to socio-economic changes such as the decline of rice and the increase in the production of other commodity crops. These trends may indicate an increase in dependence on pollination services in the future.