Hand Pollination in China The Shadow of the Future

About this book

This is not a normal beekeeping volume and tells little about bees, but it does highlight the dangers of losing them. This high-quality photographic volume by an ethnographic researcher tells a visual story of the possible dangers facing us all on this planet. It will be of interest not only to beekeepers but to everyone concerned by pesticide usage and global warming.

The author further comments on this book:
“Hand pollination in China, Sichuan province, is a very complex issue; it is an ecological, an economical issue and somewhat a political one as well. It is a predicament in which we need to allow ourselves to dive into a conversation to understand the grey areas.

The ecological side of the issue is that global climate change is affecting ecosystems, habitat loss and homogenisation along with the continuous use of pesticides, which will continue to drive the natural pollinators away from the area. The economical side to this is that large-scale commercial hand pollination is not a sustainable practice due to increasing labour costs. Furthermore, we need to understand the problem of the relocation of the youth from the countryside to the cities. In order to rebalance ecology with the economy, we need to consider these factors to enable us to move toward a more sustainable solution that would help to restore the habitat and the population of natural pollinators.

This book will be important for an audience of beekeepers and non-beekeepers alike to understand the complexity of these issues. They are hand pollinating because there is no other option, as the bees and other natural pollinators are disappeared from the area due to the wide usage of pesticides."

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