The English House of Commons is to debate the impact on bees and other insects of the new generation of pesticides that has been linked to bee mortality in several countries.
The Government will be called on to suspend all neonicotinoid pesticides approved in Britain, pending more exhaustive tests of their long-term effects on bees and other invertebrates. The subject will be raised in an adjournment debate in the Commons next Tuesday on a motion tabled by Martin Caton, the Labour MP for Gower.
Although the chemicals have been banned in several countries, including France, Germany and Italy, and the Co-op has prohibited their use in farms in Britain from which it sources fruit and vegetables, the British Government has refused calls for them to be suspended as a precaution. The food and farming minister, Jim Paice, will respond for the Government.
Mr Caton, himself a former agricultural scientist, said yesterday that the evidence was growing that they were a problem, and that the testing regime for the compounds in Britain and Europe was not rigorous enough. "I think they should be suspended on the precautionary principle while we improve it," he said.
As detailed in The Independent yesterday, the compounds, which imitate the action of nicotine, the natural insecticide substance found in tobacco, are arousing increasing concern among environmentalists and beekeepers because they are "systemic" – they enter every part of a treated plant, including the pollen and nectar. There, bees and other pollinating insects can pick them up, even if they are not the "target" species for which the pesticide is intended.
A study by the US government's leading bee researcher, backed by research in France, indicates even microscopic doses of neonicotinoids may make bees more vulnerable to disease. The study by the US Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory has remained unpublished for nearly two years, but is now being prepared for publication.
Neonicotinoid pesticides, developed and mostly made by the German chemical giant Bayer, are increasingly used around the world. In Britain, the area of cropland treated with them has gone from nothing in 1993 to more than 2.5m acres in 2008, the last year for which figures are available.
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said yesterday: "The UK has a robust system for assessing risks from pesticides, and all the evidence shows neonicotinoids do not pose an unacceptable risk when products are used correctly. However, we will not hesitate to act if presented with any new evidence."
Mr Caton has also put down an Early Day Motion in the Commons referring to a recent controversy in the US concerning one of Bayer's latest neonicotinoids, clothianidin. The motion says that the House is "gravely concerned by the contents of a recently leaked memo from the the US Environment Protection Agency, whose scientists warn that bees and other non-target invertebrates are at risk from a new neonicotinoid pesticide, and that tests in the US approval process are insufficient to detect the environmental damage caused."
It goes on: "[This house] acknowledges that these findings reflect the conclusions of a 2009 Buglife report that identified similar inadequacies in the European approval regime with regard to neonicotinoids; notes reports that bee populations have soared in four European countries that have banned these chemicals; and therefore calls on the Government to act urgently to suspend all existing approvals for products containing neonicotinoids... pending more exhaustive tests and the development of international methodologies for properly assessing the long-term effects of systemic pesticides on invertebrate populations."
Mr Caton said: "We're talking about a threat to our whole ecosystem, when invertebrates are being lost at the sort of rate that has happened in recent years."
COMMENTARY: It's no secret that I have been campaigning in several previous blog posts to have the neonicotinoid pesticide Chlothianidin banned from U.S. here in the U.S. Chlotianidin has already been been banned in Italy, France and Germany, where it nearly whipped out the bee population. I have contacted and asked Bayer CropScience, the manufacturer of Chlothianidin, to discontinue its use here in the U.S. until more extensive and thorough thorough research has been conducted on that insecticides affect on the environment, flora, wildlife and insects. I have also filed a formal complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary Bayer, the German chemicals giant which developed the insecticides and makes most of them, insists that they are safe for bees if used properly, but they have already been widely linked to bee mortality. The US findings raise questions about the substance used in the bee lab's experiment, imidacloprid, which was Bayer's top-selling insecticide in 2009, earning the company £510m. The worry is that neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxins – that is, they attack the central nervous system – are also "systemic", meaning they are taken up into every part of the plant which is treated with them, including the pollen and nectar. This means that bees and other pollinating insects can absorb them and carry them back to their hives or nests – even if they are not the insecticide's target species.
It is too simple to say that these pesticides are the root cause of the near disappearance of honey bees, butterflies and bumble bees, but the link is being made. In his book "The Systemic Insecticides – A Disaster In The Making", the Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes argues that neonicotinoids are now present in much of Holland's surface water, killing off aquatic insects and leading to a decline in insect-eating birds across the country. I hope the Dutch take strong action and ban all neonicotinoids.
When I came across the above article, it hit home once again, simply reinforcing everything that has been said by critics of neonicotinoids, especially the pesticide Chlothianidin. The implications go beyond agriculture, but our very existence. If the honey bees go, so does everything else.
Albert Einstein said if the honey bees were suddenly gone mankind would have about 4 years left to live. Well, the honey bees are going extinct now and at the present rate in another year or so there will be no more honey bees left on earth. One year from now plus another 4 years gives us the year... 2012.
I urge you to contact Bayer CropScience and the EPA as soon as possible. The more people that we can get behind this movement, the more likely that we can save the honey bees and other insects.
Courtesy of an article dated January 21, 2011 appearing in The Independent and an article dated January 20, 2011 appearing in The Independent and an article dated January 20, 2011 appearing in The Independent
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