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AUSTRALIA: Food At Risk From Bee Pest

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Jul 2 2008 (IPS) - Australia’s food security is under threat from a tiny parasite with the potential to devastate the nation’s bee and pollination industries.

"Honey bees pollinate many of the crops we rely on for food. Without bees, many horticultural industries would not be viable and the nation’s food security would be at risk," said Dick Adams, chairman of the parliamentary committee which released a report earlier this month on the future of the nation’s honeybee and pollination industries.

Titled ‘More Than Honey’, the report calls for the government to commit 50 million Australian dollars per annum to extend bio-security measures and to fund industry research.

The committee identifies the threat of disease and pest incursions as the most significant issue facing the industries, with the most immediate danger stemming from the Varroa destructor mite. A parasite which feeds on the blood of adult and larval honeybees, the Varroa mite can rapidly kill entire bee colonies through the transmission of viral and other pathogens.

Lindsay Bourke, chairman of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council (AHBIC) quarantine and disease committee, warns that the impact would be massive if Varroa were to reach Australia. "It’s the most destructive thing that could happen to our industry if it got here and it’s right on our shores now," says Bourke.

Bees from both feral and commercial hives pollinate Australian crops. "The Varroa mite has the capacity to annihilate feral bee populations and place severe pressure on managed bee populations," according to the report.

According to a submission to the parliamentary committee responsible for ‘More Than Honey’, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – Australia’s national science agency – said that Australia and Papua New Guinea were the only two agricultural regions of the world free of Varroa.

However, Bourke told IPS that a CSIRO scientist identified the Varroa mite as recently as three weeks ago in Papua New Guinea. Its presence has also been confirmed in Indonesia and New Zealand.

The CSIRO says that while many crops rely on self-pollination or on pollen to be transported by wind, around 35 percent of global crop production benefit in some part from insect pollination, mainly from bees. "Loss of insect pollinators would dramatically affect the viability of diverse industries and by extension, the diversity of the human diet," said the CSIRO.

While the CSIRO’s submission indicated that a lack of pollination would not only result in a fall in crop production but in a decrease in quality as well, the government research body noted that the effect would not be as great on staple food products – such as wheat and rice – which rely much more heavily on wind to deliver the required pollen than fruits and nuts.

Although this is good news for producers and consumers of staple food products – inflated prices for staples such as wheat, rice and corn continue to apply pressure worldwide in the ongoing "food crisis" – a Varroa incursion would still have far-reaching effects, says Bourke.

Crops of fruit such as apples and pears would be devastated, as would those of nuts, according to Bourke. "You wouldn’t have one almond," he says. "Not one nut would be produced if it wasn’t first pollinated by the bees." Bourke says that fodder crops and "clover to keep the soil sweet" also benefit from honeybee pollination.

The CSIRO supported this view. "Legumes, such as clovers, are important as a source of protein for livestock, and many legumes benefit from insect pollination," it said in its submission to the committee.

While Bourke says that the report’s recommendation to fund support of Australia’s honeybee and pollination industries to the tune of 50 million Australian dollars per year "will go a fair way towards what we have to do," he argues that urgent action is required now.

In calling on the agriculture minister, Tony Burke, to implement the committee’s recommendations, Bourke says that, "the first year of the introduction of the Varroa destructor mite into Australia could cost the Australian economy as much as 1.7 billion Australian dollars as a result of the loss of pollination services and the flow-on costs to the horticultural and plant industries."

Bourke argues that Australia’s current protection against the incursion of bee pests, the National Sentinel Hive Programme (NSHP), needs to upgraded. Sentinel hives identify bee parasites by using miticidal strips to collect specimens. The NSHP was established in 2000 and locates sentinel hives near "at risk" seaports.

Bourke told IPS that Australia needs a bait hive programme "put in beside the sentinel hive programme if we’re going to have any chance of keeping this Varroa out of our country."

Bait hives, which use pheromones to attract bees, are able to indicate an incursion of Varroa and other pests more quickly than sentinel hives. Their implementation as part of the NSHP is recommended by the ‘More Than Honey’ report.

Bourke says that New Zealand, which only ran a sentinel hive program, was unable to remain Varroa-free. He is cautiously optimistic that if Australia does implement a bait hive program it will keep the parasite out. "No country in the world has been able to do it yet, but if we have a bait hive program it will give us a better chance," he says.

The ‘More Than Honey’ report says that, "scientists who have studied the progress of this pest believe that it is only a matter of time before it arrives in Australia and devastates the honey bee population."

Bourke told IPS that a detection of Varroa anywhere in Australia would require a quarantine of the surrounding area. "We would destroy everything, every single hive of bees in that area, to try to stop it from spreading further inland throughout Australia," he says. Bourke is hopeful that an acknowledgement of the importance of the honeybee and pollination industries does not have to be preceded by a Varroa incursion. "We take it for granted, but most European crops are dependent on being pollinated by the European honey bee," he says.