Combining incentives with collective action to provide pollination and a bundle of ecosystem services in farmland

International audience

English. Bee decline and pollination deficit are driven by intensive agriculture and particularly pesticide use. So far policies to halt the decline and reduce pesticides have not unanimously been accepted, because they were not based on win-win solutions for farmers, beekeepers and biodiversity. A co-management of pests and bees is necessary, and in this study we tested if an incentive scheme based on beekeeper-farmer interdependency and collective action can lead to win-win solutions. We built a bioeconomic model to represent the mutual interdependency through pollination in intensive agricultural landscapes and simulate the economic and ecological impacts of introducing two beekeeping subsidies and one pesticide tax for different communication contexts. The model was calibrated using data from a study area in Western France. We showed that incentives affected targeted stakeholders, but also non-targeted stakeholders through a spillover effect, which therefore influenced the magnitude of ecosystem services provided at the landscape scale. We exhibited that communication between farmers and beekeepers amplified this spillover effect. Subsidies on beehives and honey led to win-win solutions for beekeepers and farmers since they had excellent pollination and economic performances, widely improved by communication. However, they were detrimental for other ecosystem services (ES) including pollination by wild pollinators. Conversely, tax on pesticides showed low economic performances, but was beneficial for the environment. Our study illustrates how a collective management of pollination is beneficial but warns against the artificialization of the pollination service that could result.