Ecosystem services provided by wild pollinators are essential for the agricultural production of smallholders in many developing countries. However, increased use of modern inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides threaten these services. Knowledge of how farmers’ adoption of modern management practices affects wild pollinator communities is therefore crucial for the design of sustainable management strategies. We model the effects of local as well as landscape parameters on bee abundance and richness using primary socio-economic survey data and pan trap experiments on 131 agricultural plots in the rural-urban interface of Bangalore, India. We employ spatial Durbin models to capture spatial correlation and spillovers. We find that pesticide use in particular has a negative effect on bee abundance, which spills over to neighboring plots up to a distance of four kilometers. In addition, our results show that bee diversity decreases with continuing intensive plot management. Strategies to protect wild bee communities and the ecosystem services that they provide should support cooperative behavior among famers to manage the externalities of pesticide use.

Bio: Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel was born in 1962 in Ottawa and grew up in Montréal, Canada. He completed BSc and MSc degrees in Agricultural Economics at McGill University and the University of Manitoba, respectively, followed by a PhD in Agricultural Economics at the University of Kiel in Germany. Following several years as Postdoc and Research Associate in Kiel he was offered the Chair for Agricultural Policy at the University of Göttingen in 1998, a position he has held since. Stephan’s research focuses on interactions between agricultural policies and the functioning of agricultural markets – both horizontally (between different locations) and vertically (up and down the food chain) – and how this affects agricultural development and food security. His recent work increasingly addresses interactions between agriculture and the environment. He is currently involved in research projects in Chile, China, Germany and India and he coordinates joint MSc programs between his university and partners in Chile (Universidad de Talca) and Indonesia (Institut Pertanian Bogor). Stephan has worked as a consultant for the EU, the FAO, the OECD, the World Bank and several national governments. He is Secretary-Treasurer of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. Stephan is married to the politician and former member of the German Bundestag Viola von Cramon (Green Party). They have four children between the ages of 13 and 21.