EFSA calls for integrated and coordinated actions at EU and international levels to address global declines of pollinators

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the keystone of the European Union’s food and feed safety risk assessment. Indeed, EFSA provides scientific advice to risks managers for the safety of food in the EU and a high level of protection for food-producing animals, including bees, their ecosystem services, such as crop pollination and honey production. The large bee losses reported worldwide over the last decades have stimulated a lot of research on the monitoring of bees, mainly Apis bees (honeybees), and their stressors (e.g. pathological, agrochemicals, environmental, nutritional, etc.), but principally on pathogens. During this process, extensive datasets have been generated and collated on honeybee losses that have been linked to diseases, pests and pathogens in Europe and North America. However, given the importance of all bee pollinators - not only honeybees ­- and the universally agreed multifactorial origin of bee losses, such an approach seems too limited and may fail in meeting the global protection goals of ensuring bee diversity, crop pollination and honey production.

Source: EFSA, 26 July 2013
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/e11071.htm