English Version

Most people think that our relationship, as humans, with nature is one of dependency on the side of nature while the complete opposite is true. Our survival depends enormously on our environment and surroundings, whether it be the weather, animals or the cornerstone of any ecosystem, the plants. Throughout the years, we have developed a variety of technologies to help us enhance our agricultural production by manipulating these environmental factor to our satisfaction and like any technology, it is ever-evolving.

Pests and crop diseases are any farmer’s nightmare. Entire crops, totaling hundreds of tons, could be lost due to an outbreak of a disease or pests and that does not affect the farmer alone. Large scale outbreaks could affect crops on a national level, causing a shortage of a product throughout the country as has happened in Ireland between 1845 and 1849 when the potato crops were destroyed due to an outbreak of late blight which resulted in the Great Irish Famine[1]. 

Moreover, not only people depend on crops, economies do as well, as agriculture contributes greatly to any countries economy. That is proven by the fact that between 2008 and 2018, over 30 billion USD were lost due to agricultural losses in north Africa and sub-Saharan alone[2].

As an effort to counter agricultural difficulties in the use of pesticides and insecticides, scientists have developed a new technique that is more effective and efficient to spread pesticides throughout crop fields called bee vectoring technology (BVT) [3]. The idea behind BVT is making pollinating bees carry the biocontrol substance to all the plants in the field, thus reducing the effort needed to manually apply the biocontrol substance.  

BVT works typically by attaching a tray containing the powdered pesticide on the hive’s exit so the powder sticks to the bee’s body. Later when it lands to perform its pollination process, the powder attached to its body is precipitated onto the crops, successfully applying the pesticide.

Making bees deliver the biocontrol substance means that less harmful pesticides are used which is better for preserving the environment. Also one might think that such technique is harmful for the bees and in such we are destroying the environment by killing the bees, but on the contrary, the technology does not harm the bees neither does it affect the honey produced [4]. Additionally, the spread of BVT will subsequently encourage the farming of bees, a much needed activity due to the decline in the bee population world-wide. 

It is our responsibility as inhabitants of this planet to preserve it, and developing techniques like BVT that leave a small carbon footprint and use less water and resources overall, should be our priority to protect our earth for us and for the future generations to come.