New Delhi: A farm crisis is humming across India, particularly impacting Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. It’s not about rainfall or fertiliser prices but the cost of pollination. With the bee population dropping, farmers are now renting hives from commercial apiaries, an added expense that’s eating into their already thin profit margins.

“You cannot tame bees in our areas. Hence, local beekeeping is not an option for us,” said Lakh Ram Maurya, 59, a mango farmer from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. “Except for 17 mango-growing belt areas in Uttar Pradesh, beekeeping is being practised elsewhere, but it’s becoming more expensive every day. We have to rent them from other places, including states like Punjab and Haryana.”

The cost of renting and maintaining hives can run to

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