Pollinator Drones Can Buzz Off

It has just been revealed to the media that Walmart filed an application on March 8 for a patent on miniature drones designed to pollinate crops grown by the retail giant for sale in its grocery stores. The company cited evidence of declines in bee populations and the need to supplement the pollination services provided by insects. It is the opinion of this writer and entomologist that this high tech response to a very serious organic and complex ecosystem problem is inappropriate, and troubling in many ways.

© Dave Simonds and Economist.comDrones are not alive

The idea of using tiny drones to accomplish the pollination of flowers, at least in agricultural systems, is nothing new. The Japanese built drones specifically for the cross-pollination of lilies. The videos of the machines in action only served to expose how clumsy and blundering they are compared to the direct and delicate maneuvers of bees. It seemed miraculous that the flower parts were not seriously damaged by the bulky and bouncy, propeller-driven craft.

Why are we so eager to replace complex living organisms with feeble facsimiles manufactured in robotics labs? Have we decided that it is acceptable to consider this as a viable “solution” to a much larger problem? I do not recall casting a vote for this myself. How long will we tolerate businesses and corporations to dictate the level of biodiversity we can do without? This is why science is getting an increasingly bad rap. Scientists are fast becoming beholden to investors, shareholders, and other private interests, and less accountable to the public. Independent, transparent, and government-sponsored research may soon be a thing of the past, if it is not so already.

The implied definition of “bee” in this particular instance is the Western Honey Bee, Apis mellifera. If that is not the case, then Walmart needs to speak up; but in the course of clarification, Walmart may expose a willingness to consider all solitary and native bee species as expendable, as long as we are able to pollinate the crops that feed us. Wildflowers and trees and shrubs are a non-issue in this scenario. They are not viewed as anything necessary to human civilization or financial prosperity. Emphasis on prosperity, as the business world tends to equate civilization with exponential fiscal growth.

Drones are not cute and fuzzy

Might it be cheaper to employ drones instead of honey bees? Maybe. Apiculture is itself an industry, with attendant expenses that are passed on to the customer. Many large-scale beekeeping enterprises involve the transcontinental movement of hives to fields and orchards where they are needed to effect pollination of almonds and other crops. This is not a cheap endeavor, and for all I know, some accountant has crunched the numbers for Walmart and declared that bees are inferior to drones from a simple cost-benefit analysis.

Replacing bees with machines cheapens our humanity in many other ways, though. There is no substitute for interactions with other living organisms, though we seem hell-bent on trying to make it so. We erect all manner of filters between ourselves and other humans, even. I am beginning to feel the need to apologize that you are reading this message from a static screen instead of hearing it from my lips, in person, with all the nuances of annunciation and emphasis, all the facial expressions that amplify my concern.

Drones are not specialized like this squash bee to pollinate specific kinds of flowers

Sam Walton’s heirs may literally prosper with every effort to simplify their business, and the lives of their customers, but I prosper most in the chaos that is wild nature. My psyche requires that if I am to be civil to my fellow man. A vast field of corn, uninterrupted by hedgerows, windbreaks of trees, or other hints of what used to be there, is a vast wasteland to my mind and soul. Indeed, farming practices that enhance biodiversity can be cost-saving, too. The more wild, unmanaged pollinators, the more predatory and parasitic insects, the more birds, the more wildflowers (you may call them “weeds”), the less need for fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and other chemical dependencies. The better state of mind of the farmer, too, the more adventures their children can have exploring the acres.

I could drone on, but you get the point. We can continue to impoverish our lives by distancing ourselves from nature, or we can choose to embrace it, despite its unpredictability. The future is in the latter approach. The former has no future.