China invests two times as much as USA on honey bee research

Introduction

It is well known that honey bees (Apis mellifera in North America and Europe, but also A. cerana in Asia) are the most beneficial insects to humans due to the pollination services they provide to our fruits and vegetables (Gallai et al., 2009). The most recent estimated value of honey bees in the US was $15 billion per year (Morse & Calderone, 2000). This is likely underestimated: in Michigan alone, the value of fruits and vegetables that resulted from honey bee pollination was close to 1 billion per year (http://bees.msu.edu/2010/bees-worth-a-billion-in-michigan/), after adjusting for the honey bee dependency factor of each crop. For example, soybean only increases 10% of its yield after honey bee pollination, so only 10% of the total production value was used for this calculation.

Funding in China

In the following discussion, we show that the US lagged behind China in governmental investment in honey bee research. China does not seem to have suffered from the same Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that the US has endured since the fall of 2006 (Cox-Foster et al., 2007). The most recent survey conducted by Vander (Vander Zee et al., 2012) found annual colony loss in China was below 10%. Yet, since 2008, China has invested much more than the US in honey bee research. In their Earmarked Fund for Chinese Modern Agro-industry Technology Research System, (shortened as CARS [sic]), a chief scientist, Jie Wu was chosen, who then assembled a team of 19 additional scientists nationwide (Wu, 2009). These scientists were organized into 6 laboratories, though most members in each laboratory were not located at the same institution (Table 1). A total of $19 million USD has been granted to these scientists since 2008. In addition, 21 honey-bee-specific experimental stations were funded at a slightly lower level with a total of $10.2 million USD across the two funding periods (Table 2). An independent project for pear pollination in northern China was funded for 15 million RMB (~$2.5 million USD), also by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (personal communication). This was directed by Youquan Shao in Shanxi, who also receives funds from CARS (#5 in Table 2). He was specifically instructed to help farmers use honey bees for pear pollination instead of hand pollination, which was common in some northern provinces of China (Ya et al., 2003).

Notice that these numbers (Table 1 and Table 2) do not include competitive funding from the Ministry of Agriculture (USDA equivalent in China) nor the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, the NSF equivalent in China) for honey bee research. Unlike the US, in China the NSFC must award 4–6 grants to honey bee research each year, while in US, only the best among animal behavior or physiology (NSF) are funded by NSF, even in USDA grants, honey bee research must be competed in entomology and nematology, so there is no guarantee that honey bee specific proposals will be funded.

It is also quite clear that the funding provided by CARS enabled Chinese scientists to conduct many basic research projects, as evidenced by the acknowledgement of CARS in their papers (Figure 1). The number of publications per year increased significantly (P=0.03, one tailed t-test) after CARS funded the three scientists (we assumed a two year delay in publications so we compared before and after 2010). The majority of scientists were to conduct applied research and they published mostly in Chinese trade magazines.

Figure 1. Number of articles published in refereed journals by three scientists in China (Songkun Su, Jianke Li and Zhijiang Zeng, respectively for A, B and C, respectively).

Nearly all papers published after 2010 acknowledged CARS funding (dark column).

China has a total of 50 such groups within the apicultural system, most of them with larger group sizes than the honey bee group (CARS45). They are planning a third phase of this project (starting in 2016), and per scientist allocation is expected to increase from 700,000 yuan to 1 million (=$164,000 per year per person).

Funding in the US

In the US, after the initial announcement of CCD in 2006, the USDA gave the four honey bee labs (now only three are left) an “Area Wide” program for honey bee research, totaling $4 million. Then there was a CAP (Coordinated Agricultural Project) grant specific to honey bees in 2008; entitled the “Sustainable Solutions to Problems Affecting Health of Managed Bees,” this project was managed by Dr. Keith Deplane, University of Georgia and shared by about a dozen honey bee scientists (of which Zachary Y. Huang is a consortium member). Another NIFA-CAP project was funded in 2011, for a total of $5.0 million (http://beeinformed.org), directed by Dennis vanEngelsdorp (University of Maryland). Notice that with the exception of the Area Wide Program, the two CAP grants were also competitive funding and they were funded because they won the competitive over many other, non-honey bee proposals. The original request for proposals for these two grants were not specifically limited for pollinator research. However if we exclude these two grants, then we would not have an even lower figure compared to China. Even with these two grants included, we show that the total investment into honey bee research is about 1:2.5, US:China (Table 3). We did not include other grants won competitively from NIFA, NSF or NIH, because they were not specifically designed for honey bee or pollinator research.

Competitive or not?

We are not proposing that the funding mechanism is superior in China because competition presumably improves proposal quality. Perhaps a middle road is the best: set aside research money for honey bees specifically, or pollinators in general, both in the USDA and NSF, such that a limited “quota” of proposals are funded each year for honey-bee-specific research. This will ensure both quality (through competition) of studies as well as proper resource partition for honey bee research. Given that honey bees are so important to food production, we argue that honey bees are vitally important for our food security. Undoubtedly, two recently released White House Documents (Pollinator Health Task Force, 2015a; Pollinator Health Task Force, 2015b) might create just such a specific funding mechanism so that food production by honey bees can be ensured. We therefore welcome this much needed change in the right direction.