How to explain the lack of artificial pollination in space colonies?

My story is set in the future where space travel is cheap and humanity has colonized Mars and some parts of the asteroid belt. Asteroid colonies can grow their own staple food, but crops that require pollination, like fruits, are imported from Earth and Mars because it's cheaper than growing them on the colonies.

The story starts when the prices of imported crops rise to the point where the colonists start to consider growing their own fruits. The colonists have had some success, but because fruit plants has to be pollinated by hand (no bees in space), most of these attempts are small scale.

The protagonist of the story is a thief who creates and uses bee-like robots to aid her in stealing things. She then discovers that her bee robot technology can be used for more productive things, like pollinating fruit plants cheaply and quickly, enabling mass production of fruits.

The thing is, shouldn't this kind of technology be perfected and commonplace before we reach this level of space travel? Even now, people around the world are trying to develop robotic artificial pollinators, because the bees are going extinct or something. How can I explain why this artificial pollination technology didn't make it to the asteroid colonies?

posted over 6 years ago

M Arif Rahman Winandar‭

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