In Nepal’s remote mountain district of Jumla, preparation for a family meal begins long before food reaches the cooking pot. It starts in terraced fields of beans, buckwheat, apples and pumpkins that must be ploughed, planted, tended and harvested before a family can eat.

But other workers often go unseen: the pollinating insects. By moving pollen between flowers, pollinators ensure that crops bear healthy, nutritious fruit to eat and sell.

Most people don’t think about insects when they eat. But in farming systems like this one, the link is direct and stark. If pollinators decline, crop harvests decline. That can mean less food on the plate, fewer nutrients in people’s diets, and less income for the household.

In our new study, published in the journal Nature, we set out to trace that chain of connections directly: from pollinating insects to crops to human diets and livelihoods.

Working in ten smallholder farming villages in Jumla, our team recorded the diets of 776 women, men and children over a full year. We measured where key nutrients came from, and how this changed through the seasons. At the same time, we surveyed the insects........

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