The EU’s Neonicotinoid Ban: Precursor to a Glyphosate Ban?
November 22, 2017
Editor’s Note: Anti-neonic activists will not stop with banning neonicotinoids, they want to ban much of modern agriculture, see here.
From: Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West
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Many environmentalists have been astonished by the public posture of Michael Gove since he took over at DEFRA. In the few months he has been environment secretary, he has offered us small but juicy tidbits like a bottle deposit scheme or a public attack on the ivory trade. And last week he pulled out his trump card: a ban on bee-killing neonicotinoid insecticides.
However, while he was doing that, our representatives in Brussels were voting to support the renewal of the licence for toxic glyphosate, Europe’s most used herbicide. Neonicotinoids and glyphosate are two sides of the same coin. Both are controversial, and both have been key ingredients in the UKs chemical farming culture. But it seems unlikely that Gove will support a ban on this herbicide, which is linked to cancers and other health problems and to damaging biodiversity and soil health. Especially so because of his belief in what is falsely called ‘conservation agriculture’, otherwise known as the ‘no till’ or ‘minimum till’ method of preparing fields before a crop is sown.
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