Environmentalists Try to Squash a Bug Killer
March 6, 2013
Editor’s Note: At EPA’s Pollinator Summit held yesterday in Washington, DC– a leading scientist identfied the Varroa mite as the most likely cause of bee health decline; a position CRE has held for a considerable time. See this website tomorrow for a an indepth review of the Pollinator Summit.
Wall Street Journal
In January, the European Commission advised the EU not to use neonicotinoids, a relatively
new class of agricultural insecticides. Now the member countries are considering whether to
ban the chemical. The Commission’s warning came after heavy pressure from
environmentalists who cited concern about honeybees and other insects that pollinate
important crops.
This is bad advice. The evidence against the insecticide is weak. Banning it would be at best
premature and likely to do far more harm than good.
The new neonicotinoids are often applied directly to the seeds so that the chemical is
contained within the growing plant, thereby protecting it from pests. Seed treatment allows
for lower doses of insecticide than spraying.
And what about the bees? In recent years there appears to have been increased bee
“dieoffs” and disappearances of whole hives in the EU and U. S. Environmental groups such
as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Food Safety principally blame
neonicotinoids, which have been used widely around the world for at least a decade.
But bee die- offs are not new. Bee colonies were also reported disappearing in the early part
of the 20th century, long before modern insecticides. If neonicotinoids were causing die- offs,
there should be more of them with the higher use of these insecticides— yet there aren’t.
For example, neonicotinoids are widely used in Australia, but there have been no reports of
massive bee losses. But Australia does not have the varroa mite, a parasite that has long
been the scourge of bees and beekeepers.
Peter Borst, a bee expert and research scientist at Cornell University, reports that almost all
of Canada’s honey comes from the 300,000 beehives in the country’s canola fields. Canada
is the world’s largest single producer of canola, a nutritionally rich crop for bees. Despite the
fact that neonicotinoids are widely used in Canada and elsewhere used to protect canola
from pests, Canadian bee populations have been largely unaffected and produce around 50
million pounds of canola honey.
There are healthy bee populations in countries that use neonicotinoids, and there are reports
of die- offs in countries such as Switzerland, where neonicotinoids are not used. The reality
is that bee die- offs may be caused by numerous factors, such as the varroa mite, other
parasites and viruses.
If neonicotinoids are banned, farmers will have to use older insecticides such as
organophosphates, which are potentially more harmful to the environment. These older
insecticides have been banned in some countries. Without alternative or better means of
pest control, crop yields would likely decrease. More land would be needed for agriculture,
leaving less habitat for wildlife— including wild bees.
Wit
