here's a quick exercise: think about what you ate today.
coffee? pollinated. that apple in your lunch? pollinated. the almonds in your snack? entirely dependent on bees. blueberries, strawberries, tomatoes, squash, avocados — all of them require animals to move pollen from flower to flower.
about 75% of food crops depend at least partially on pollinators. not just for quantity, but quality — poorly pollinated fruits are misshapen, smaller, and less nutritious.
so what's that worth?
the numbers
globally, pollinators contribute between $235 billion and $577 billion per year in agricultural value. in the united states alone, the figure is around $34-50 billion annually.
these aren't abstract numbers. they're the difference between grocery stores full of produce and grocery stores without it.
to put it in perspective:
- almonds are 100% dependent on honeybee pollination
- apples need pollinators for 90% of their yield
- blueberries drop by 75% without adequate pollination
- coffee yields fall 20-25% without pollinators
without pollination services, these foods don't disappear entirely — but they become scarce and expensive. a world with compromised pollination is a world where fruits and vegetables become luxury goods.
who does this work?
when people think "pollinator," they usually think honeybees. but the workforce is far more diverse:
- wild bees (over 20,000 species globally)
- butterflies and moths
- beetles (the original pollinators, 150 million years ago)
- flies (including hoverflies, crucial for many crops)
- wasps
- birds (hummingbirds, honeyeaters)
- bats (essential for agave, bananas, mangoes)
wild pollinators alone contribute about $1.5 billion per year to just seven U.S. crops. and here's the concerning part: a recent study across six continents found that one-third to two-thirds of farms are producing below their potential because of insufficient pollination.
the workforce is understaffed.
the collapse in slow motion
you've probably heard about bee decline. it's real, but it's not just honeybees:
- wild bee populations are down 25-40% in many regions
- monarch butterflies have declined 80% since the 1990s
- some bumblebee species have lost 90% of their range
the causes are interconnected: habitat loss, pesticide exposure (especially neonicotinoids), climate change disrupting bloom timing, and diseases spreading between managed and wild populations.
what makes this tricky is the lag. pollinator decline doesn't show up immediately in grocery stores. yields drop gradually. quality degrades slowly. by the time it's obvious, the underlying system has already eroded.
the pricing problem
here's the core issue: pollination is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but pollinators don't send invoices.
farmers don't pay wild bees. landowners don't get compensated for maintaining pollinator habitat. the economic value is real but invisible — it shows up nowhere in anyone's balance sheet.
which means when decisions get made about land use, pesticide application, or development priorities, pollination services are valued at zero. they get traded away for things that do have a price.
this is the fundamental mispricing that ensurance addresses.
making the invisible visible
the pollination ensurance coin creates a financial instrument tied to pollinator conservation. trading fees flow to the pollination.ensurance pool, funding habitat protection and restoration work.
it's not about "buying" pollination — that would be absurd. it's about creating economic signals that reflect real value. when you hold the pollination coin, you're expressing a position: this service matters, and the current price (zero) is wrong.
what you can do now
- plant for pollinators — native flowering plants, especially those that bloom at different times throughout the season
- reduce pesticide use — especially neonicotinoids, which persist in soil and accumulate in pollen
- leave habitat — bare ground for ground-nesting bees, dead wood for cavity nesters, undisturbed areas for overwintering
- support pollinator-friendly farming — look for operations that maintain habitat and minimize pesticide use
- hold the coin — pollination ensurance directs capital toward the gap between what pollinators are worth and what they're paid
next time you eat an apple or drink coffee, remember: someone did the work to make that possible. they just didn't send a bill.