Claudio Porrini

One of the new objectives laid out by the European Union’s Common Agriculture Policy is increasing environmental sustainability. In this paper we compare the degree of average dependence index for each member state (ADIMS) in EU28 from 2007 to 2019 in order to verify the following: (1) whether there was a difference in this index when comparing two CAP periods—(a) from 2007 to 2013 and (b) from 2014 to 2019—and (2) which crops had a larger effect on the ADIMS. The study showed no significant variation in the average ADIMS at EU level between the first (2007–2013) and second (2014–2019) CAP periods. The AIDMS index highlighted three types of EU agriculture: (1) agriculture in Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, characterized by a high level of ADIMS (10.7–22) due to the widespread cultivation of oil crops as rapeseed and sunflower; (2) Mediterranean agriculture including Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and France with lower AIDMS levels (5.3–10.3) given their heterogeneous crop portfolios with different degrees of dependence on animal pollination (almond, soy, rapeseed, sunflower and tomatoes) and (3) continental agriculture including Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Baltic countries, Benelux, Finland, Sweden and Ireland, which are characterized by the lowest ADIMS level (0.7–10.6) due to the widespread cultivation of cereals (anemophily and self-pollination) which increase the denominator of the index. The study suggests that a sustainable management of the agroecosystem will be possible in the future only if CAP considers pollinators’ requirements by quantifying the timing and spatial food availability from cultivated and uncultivated areas.

Il declino degli impollinatori selvatici e, in particolare, la mortalità delle api domestiche registrata negli ultimi anni hanno messo in evidenza il fondamentale ruolo delle api e degli altri insetti pronubi nell’impollinazione delle piante. L’accertamento delle cause di questi fenomeni non è di facile realizzazione, perché i fattori implicati possono variare e combinarsi fra loro. L’esposizione ai pesticidi, insieme alle patologie, ai parassiti, alle pratiche apistiche e alle condizioni nutrizionali, agroambientali e climatiche contribuiscono, secondo la teoria del vaso traboccante (Fig. 11.1), a causare, in proporzioni differenti, l’indebolimento e il successivo collasso degli alveari. I pesticidi, in particolare gli insetticidi, oltre alle mortalità provocate da grossolani errori durante il loro impiego (interventi fitoiatrici eseguiti in fioritura, durante i flussi di melata, in presenza di vento, contaminazione della flora spontanea, ecc.), sono anche sospettati di abbassare, in dosi sub-letali, le difese immunitarie e di indurre alterazioni sul comportamento, sull’orientamento e sull’attività sociale delle api [1, 2].

APOIDEA SL is a technology-based company in Cordoba University, Spain. It operates environmental quality control projects through the use of monitoring stations using Apis mellifera colonies and other bees, as environmental bioindicators. In this way it attempts to improve the management, decision making and competitiveness of businesses, industries and government institutions.