While Baganda people have little knowledge of pollination,human communities living in most other ecological zones of Uganda have a good knowledge of pollination. In fact, during a study conducted in western part of Uganda , it was realized that communities living in the mountainous region bordering Bwindi Impenetrable forest and Mgahinga Gorilla forest national parks were aware of the value pollinators. Most farmers interviewed from that region new how to manage their lands to care for pollinators . Farmers from that region had 5 to 15 beehives each while in central Uganda few farmers own beehives. Bee-keeping is not a common farming practice in central Uganda whereas in western part of the region, it is one of the lucrative activities providing income to farmers. Hence, knowledge of pollination by bees is advanced in west part of the country. Additionally Baganda people were incapable of differentiating bees from other insects. Batwa people had local names for different species of stingless bees.
Different stingless bee species have distinct names according to Batwa nomen-clature: Maranga , Obwiza , Obugashu , Obuzagali and Obuganza . It was there after assumed that the high level of knowledge pollinator species and pollination by human communities from western part of Uganda may be linked to the fact that their agricultural systems is largely depending on inputs including pollination and fertilizers. Overall, the increase in level of knowledge of pollination by farmers seems following a gradient from the edge of Lake Victoria to Western part of the country. Differences in perceptions and knowledge of pollination constitute a major obstacle in farmer–researcher cooperation and collaboration which is necessary for sustainable management of pollination services in rural farmlands. The aim of this study was to understand knowledge and perceptions of the importance of pollinators and pollination services in coffee production. Farmers’ perceptions were investigated in order to harness their knowledge in the participatory development of conservation strategies of pollination services. Findings indicated that farmers’ awareness of pollinator importance in coffee yield increase was extremely low and gender biased with males having high knowledge than females.
One of the greatest challenges for the conservation of Apoidea fauna in farmlands of central Uganda is the great ignorance of the role played by bees in crop production enhancement including coffee. Ironically,vertical grow table small scale farmers in central Uganda are involved in all activities related to the destruction and conservation of natural resources. Obviously, farmers can play significant role in the conservation of bees if they are made aware of the importance of bees to the improvement of their livelihood and sustainability of their agricultural systems. African farmers are aware of insects as pests but not as important factor in the agricultural productivity. Bees are taken for granted by farmers, just like the air and the light. However, the “free pollination service” provided by “God” to human survival is irreplaceable and it will be difficult for scientists to find a technology that can replace it in the nature. In Uganda, many people and farmers believe that if there is a yield loss, it will be attributed to anything but not to pollination deficit. However, conservation of pollinators is a key for sustainable agriculture development in Africa. Much of crops grown in Africa owe their production to bee pollination activities. African green revolution will not work without paying great attention to pollinators in the plant breeding programs .
Findings from this study also indicated that, that more than 90% of the farmers were not aware of the role played by bees in the increase of coffee yield. As it was also observed in Kenya , small-scale farmers in central Uganda were not willing to manage their lands to protect pollinators because not only that they were ignorant, but, they also considered pollination as an unsolicited “free service”, or as a “public good”. Most farmers considered that coffee could still produce with or with-out receiving visits from bees. In contrast to the views and perceptions of the farmers, pollination experiments conducted from 30 coffees showed that the economic value of pollination services delivered to coffee approximated US $ 650/ha/year on average . At the national level, the total economic value of coffee produced in Uganda is on average of US$214 million from half million hectares dedicated to coffee production, and ap-proximately 60% of this economic value is attributable to pollination services delivered by bees to coffee in Uganda . This is the evidence that coffee needed pollinators in central Uganda.