MATTER Magazine
It is common knowledge that bees, butterflies and other pollinator populations have all fallen into a sharp decline. For bees, this occurrence is typically manifested as Colony Collapse Disorder, when the majority of worker bees disappear and leave behind the queen, food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees.
Colony Collapse Disorder is caused by a multitude of factors: pesticides, either when applied on purpose or accidentally spread through previously undetected routes (such as dust, soil or plant pollen), pathogens (bacteria, viruses or other illness-causing microorganisms), fungicides, loss of genetic diversity through selective breeding, climate change and malnutrition (due to a reduction in flower diversity). According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the population of the rusty-patched bumble bee, one of the world’s previously most common pollinators, has declined 87 percent since the 1980s.
The harms of pollinator reduction are clear: pollinators provide a huge agricultural advantage, and honeybees perform some level of pollination for nearly 75 percent of all plant species directly used for human food worldwide according to Stéphane Kluser of the Université de Genéve. Overall, the honeybees’ pollination services have an economic value estimated to be $3 billion. Without these pollinators, both the human species and all species who rely on pollinated plants will suffer.
However, not all hope is lost. In the past few years, a multitude of work has been done to mitigate the effects of this pressing issue. Many service organizations work to protect bee habitats and important pollinator-dependent plants; there has been an increase in research on the impacts of GMO crops and pesticides on pollinators, and other groups, such as the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, support pollinator initiatives and incorporate native, pollinator-supportive plants into the service’s current activities. One of the most beneficial efforts to date has been this shift in organizations’ simple inclusion of native, beneficial plants whenever possible.
What easier place is there to do this then in large fields that receive lots of sunlight? In 2017, the Pine Gate Renewables facility in southwestern Oregon began to sow a 41-acre solar panel farm with a wide array of native wildflowers. This company isn’t the only one to have taken this initiative, with Minnesota estimating that half of the 4,000 acres of commercial solar projects installed in 2016 and 2017 included such pollinator-inviting habitats.
In the past, solar farms have reduced the acreage of agricultural farms while providing no direct compensation to the farmers. But agricultural communities are more likely to welcome replacing areas or turf grass or gravel with pollinator-inviting plants, as pollinators boost the success of farms. According to a study published in Environmental Science & Technology, over 2,000 square miles (3,500 square kilometers) of agricultural land near existing and planned utility-scale solar energy facilities could benefit from these changes. The study additionally stated that if all existing and planned solar facilities near soybeans, almonds and cranberry crops included pollinator habitat and increased yield by just one percent, crop values could rise $1.75 million, $4 million and $233,000, respectively.
Additionally, covering lands in flowers reduces both the maintenance costs of these farms as well as the amount of water farms need. Currently, turf grass requires constant watering, typically provided via a sprinkler system. Sprinkler systems use much more water than plants actually need due to the amount of sprinkler water that evaporates. By changing the environment to wildflowers native to the specific area, the amount of rain present in that region would often be sufficient, reducing both costs and the water cost.
Although the long-term benefits and survival rates of these projects have not yet been fully explored, a three-year study between Cornell University and Cypress Creek Renewables has recently begun. With the National Renewable Energy Laboratory aiming for six million acres of solar panels coupled with wildflowers by 2050, there is hope that these lands will provide not only a short-term solution, but an end to the terrifying decline in such a vital group of organisms.