Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, Reading University, Reading RG6 6AR, UK.
Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern and Agroscope, Schwarzenburgstrasse 161, CH-3097 Bern, Switzerland.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Nov 15;642:665-667. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.06.114. Epub 2018 Jun 14.
The notion that robotic crop pollination will solve the decline in pollinators has gained wide popularity recently (Fig. 1), and in March 2018 Walmart filed a patent for autonomous robot bees. However, w present six arguments showing that this is a technically and economically inviable 'solution' at present and poses substantial ecological and moral risks: (1) despite recent advances, robotic pollination is far from being able to replace bees to pollinate crops efficiently; (2) using robots is very unlikely to be economically viable; (3) there would be unacceptably high environmental costs; (4) wider ecosystems would be damaged; (5) it would erode the values of biodiversity; and, (6) relying on robotic pollination could actually lead to major food insecurity.
最近，机器人作物授粉将解决授粉媒介减少这一观点得到了广泛的认可（图 1），2018 年 3 月，沃尔玛公司为自主机器人蜜蜂申请了专利。然而，我们提出了六个论点，表明这在技术和经济上目前是不可行的“解决方案”，并带来了巨大的生态和道德风险：（1）尽管最近取得了进展，但机器人授粉远不能有效地替代蜜蜂来为作物授粉；（2）使用机器人不太可能在经济上可行；（3）环境成本将高得令人无法接受；（4）更广泛的生态系统将受到破坏；（5）这将侵蚀生物多样性的价值；（6）依赖机器人授粉实际上可能导致严重的粮食不安全。
