HISTORY
By 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow by 25%, reaching about 10 billion people. To feed everyone, we’ll need to produce more food than ever before, and that means we also need more pollinators.
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Figure 1: Estimates of population levels in different continents between 1950 and 2050, according to the United Nations
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Figure 2: Will there be enough food by 2050?
For a long time, people relied on nature to pollinate their crops. Bees, birds, and even the wind help carry pollen from one flower to another. Pollinators, especially honey bees, are responsible for pollinating about 75% of the food crops we eat.
Figure 3: Bees pollinate flowers
Picture Source: Royalty Free Photo
Figure 4: Bees pollinate flowers
Picture Source: Royalty Free Photo
Figure 5: Bees pollinate flowers
Picture Source: Royalty Free Photo
In the 1990s, scientists started noticing that bees were disappearing. They were facing great dangers like habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change, which meant there were fewer bees to help with pollination.
People started to use simple tools like feathers or brushes to help move pollen by hand, but this worked only for small gardens.
Figure 6: Manual Pollination
Image Credit: Photo by the Electro-BUZZ team
Figure 7: Manual Pollination
Image Credit: Photo by the Electro-BUZZ team
Figure 8: Manual Pollination
Image Credit: Photo by the Electro-BUZZ team
Manual pollination tools were helping, but they were only good for small gardens.
As farms grew bigger, the need for more food became important, and people realized that nature alone couldn’t always help with pollination.
Figure 9: Pollination with a brush
Image Credit: Photo by the Electro-BUZZ team
Figure 10: Pollination with a brush
Image Credit: Photo by the Electro-BUZZ team
Figure 11: Pollination with a brush
Image Credit: Photo by the Electro-BUZZ team
To help solve this problem, scientists began to think about how robots could help pollinate crops.