Terre d'Abeilles Spotlights the Real Cost of a World Without Bees

Jun. 19, 2026

As debates intensify around the use of pesticides in France and worldwide, Terre d’Abeilles and TBWA Paris are raising the alarm about a largely overlooked reality: the direct impact of this ecological crisis on household purchasing power.

To make this threat tangible, an unprecedented initiative was carried out at the Chauvigny market, in the heart of France : for one day, fruit and vegetable prices were multiplied by fifteen.

€180 per kilo of tomatoes, €30 per cucumber, €120 for a punnet of strawberries, €233 per kilo of courgettes, €89 for a melon.

These prices, calculated using cross-referenced datas from the official INRAE simulator and international scientific studies (Klein, Siopa, Turo), reflect the true cost of food in a world without pollinators.

This deliberately striking experiment aimed to make a still too abstract reality concrete: without bees, our everyday food would become an unaffordable luxury.

It’s not just about honey

As discussions intensify around the authorization of certain chemical substances, the issue goes far beyond environmental protection.

Each year in France, nearly one-third of honeybee colonies are wiped out or severely weakened. And the latest update of the IUCN Red List (October 2025) confirms that 10% of European wild bee species are now threatened with extinction : a 123% increase in just a decade.

Yet for many people, this disappearance still feels like a distant concern. In everyday life, there always seem to be more urgent priorities: rising fuel costs, increasing grocery bills, tighter end-of-month budgets.

What often goes unnoticed is that these issues are all connected.

The disappearance of bees is not just an environmental emergency : it is the greatest threat to our purchasing power.
72.2% of crops grown for human consumption depend, to varying degrees, on insect pollinators. Less pollination means lower yields, scarcer production, increased pressure on agricultural markets and ultimately, higher prices for everyone.
 
So why are bees disappearing?
 
The decline of bees and other pollinators is linked to several environmental factors, but one of the primary causes remains the widespread use of pesticides in agriculture, despite their known risks.
 
Among them, neonicotinoids are particularly singled out by scientists. These highly toxic insecticides attack bees’ nervous systems, disrupt their navigation, and gradually weaken entire colonies.
 
Other contributing factors include the loss of wildflowers, declining biodiversity, the spread of the Asian hornet and the effects of climate change.  All of which further threaten pollinators.
 
Making the invisible visible
 
Faced with the threat of extinction of bees and other pollinators, Terre d’Abeilles has one clear objective: to make this issue tangible and understandable for everyone.
 
It is a fight the organization has been leading relentlessly for nearly 25 years, advocating for agroecology that respects biodiversity and human health.