UK insect decline: Government commits to expanded pollinator monitoring scheme amid watchdog warnings

The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has acknowledged that long-term monitoring of pollinators is “crucial” to food production. This is in response to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s (SITC) report on flagging a “concerning trend” of declining insects in the UK.

DEFRA maintains that it has been addressing insect declines with the National Pollinator Strategy. This strategy tackles threats posed by pests and disease, habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, and climate change. The strategy is set to be updated for the period 2025-2035.

Additionally, DEFRA reveals plans to expand the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS), which has delivered two large-scale surveys since 2017, to include bees and hoverflies using DNA sequencing.

“A healthy environment is vital to our food and economic security, which is why we must protect our pollinators and other insects,” a DEFRA spokesperson tells Food Ingredients First.

“That is why this Government is committed to banning toxic bee-killing pesticides alongside other measures to stop the long-term decline of our wildlife.”

Committee flags pollinator monitoring data gaps

SITC notes that pollinators, which include insects and invertebrates such as bees and moths, are essential for the sustainability of agricultural environments beyond food production. These species need nurturing and maintenance to support resilient food systems.

However, the committee flags that several species groups have been entirely excluded from baseline measures, which influence the targets and progress on stopping and reversing extinctions and declining insect populations by 2042. These include species like predatory beetles, crucial for the country’s food security.

Professor James Bell, former head of the Rothamsted Insect Survey, highlights that it’s not just about specific insect species but the broader invertebrate groups that perform essential ecosystem functions.

“While pollinators have a high profile, equally important for food security are the beneficial invertebrates that contribute to decomposition — the breakdown of organic matter — without which the planet would be submerged in excess organic matter, reducing soil health. This includes worms, springtails, and chewing insects like caterpillars,” he tells us.

Meanwhile, SITC chair Chi Onwurah has written to DEFRA to clarify its response.

Professor Bell emphasizes that pest regulation is “another important ecosystem function” that reduces insecticide need.In a letter addressed to Steve Reed, secretary of state for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Onwurah asks how the authorities plan to increase current pollinator monitoring and urges them to include all insects and invertebrates essential to UK food security in the plan.

“The committee is pleased that the government agreed to expand PoMS. However, while the department acknowledged gaps in its species abundance and risk indicators, it stopped short of agreeing to fix them, citing a lack of data,” she says.

SITC acknowledges the success of the National Pollinator Strategy and flags the opportunity to build on it by developing a complementary “National Invertebrate Strategy” that would cover invertebrates that perform vital ecological roles.

“Insects and invertebrates are as crucial as pollinators in supporting natural and agricultural environments, and their numbers need to be monitored. If they’re not included in official metrics, statutory targets to halt and reverse species extinction could be met even if all the UK’s bees, wasps, ants, and moths go extinct.”

“This is very worrying. I hope the government will be able to tell us how it will monitor the decline of all these species and how it will fill its data gaps,” Onwurah continues.

Mitigating insect decline in agriculture

According to the SITC, 70% of the UK’s land is farmed. Agricultural practices, therefore, have a major impact on insects. Pesticides can often cause harm to beneficial insects, but their effects on other species have not been well-researched or documented.

Bell emphasizes that pest regulation is “another important ecosystem function” that reduces insecticide need. This, he says, “has to be a priority.”

“Let’s not forget the cultural services insects and, more widely, invertebrates provide, too, contributing to our physical health and well-being. The major disservice is the spread of disease, so common in agriculture and mostly caused by pest aphids, planthoppers, leaf beetles, and some flies that transmit diseases to our crops or reduce yields through damage. However, these also provide food for our farmland birds, so it’s a complicated story.”

DEFRA aims to drive the uptake of Integrated Pest Management among farmers and growers in the forthcoming National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (NAP).

But while the UK has made global commitments to cut the risk caused by pesticides by half by 2030, the NAP, a crucial measure in managing research gaps and encouraging practical reductions in pesticide usage, is now “seven years overdue,” notes Onwurah.

The DEFRA spokesperson has indicated to Food Ingredients First that the plan will be published this spring, adding that the government is “now identifying legislative options that would legally prevent the future use of three specific neonicotinoids [systemic insecticides chemically related to nicotine] — clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam — entirely, taking account of the importance of pollinators.”

The department notes that in addition to NAP, the UK government’s new environmental and land management schemes will ensure that farmers and landowners play an essential role in halting the decrease in insect species by 2030 and food production.

Bell advocates for change in agricultural practices to mitigate declines in beneficial insect populations.

“In the UK, we have the sustainable farming initiative, funded by the government in response to the Agriculture Act 2020 which set out the need for public goods. It’s a good piece of legislation but to make rapid change, the payments for maximising biodiversity net gain need to be closer to the profits gained from growing  a crop — i.e. equity. Then, the landscape will favour biodiversity,” he concludes.