Résumé
Insect pollination is an ecosystem service that is threatened, though it contributes to the sexual reproduction of most of the wild and cultivated flora. This work aims to assess the impact of this service on agriculture. Fom a literature review, we identified three major questions related to this issue: What is the contribution of pollinators to agricultural production worldwide? How will the vulnerability of agriculture change during the coming century? What will be the impact of a pollinator decline on social welfare? Using a technical-economic approach, we valued the contribution of this service to world agriculture at 153 billion euros in 2005, which represented 10% of the total value of world agricultural production used for human food. The consequences of a pollinator loss on social welfare were modeled using a partial equilibrium and estimated between 228 and 310 billion euros based upon a price elasticity of demand of -1.2 and -0.8, respectively. To assess future trends, we simulated the evolution of European agriculture under several land use scenarios, and found that the contribution of pollinators will not diminish in the next century even under the most extreme scenarios. Finally, we analyzed the impact of pollinator loss in the framework of a general equilibrium with two consumers who share two goods, each produced by a single firm with one good dependent on insect pollination and the other not. This analysis indicated that the substitutability between the two markets enabled to reduce the welfare loss. It also showed that when the income distribution is linked to the different goods, the relative importance given in the society to industries related to these goods affects the welfare loss resulting from pollinator decline and it could even become nil.