Bayer and Syngenta sues EU to lift ban on there bee killing pesticides
.Because every one here needs to and likes to eat I thought this might be of some interest. Bayer and Syngenta both sell the chemicals that is behind the failure and collapse of be hives all over the world EU scientists found this out and the public demanded and got the ban.
Now the two companies are suing claiming that the ban is overreacting and violates laws of free trade. This has been a long fight in Europe and I am stunned at the total lack of information on this side of the pond. I follow agricultural news since I was 14years old and my reading up until recently has no mentioned that any one here had any Idea that this was one of the discovered causes.
Misha Nova
Comments
Pardon my lack of knowledge
But what product are you referring to? Neonicottoids? or some other product? Why do I see so many bees around vehicles that use a lot of E85? Lots of variables to pin it on one particular cause. Why not GM corn, which was shown in two studies to have an affect on bees?
GM Corn (And any other GM crop for that matter)
We don't let that get grown commercially here in the UK. None of the big supermarkets will touch foodstufs with GM ingredients.
The Bee population has crashed in recent years. An apiarist near me had 20+ hives 5 years ago. Now he has just three. One is on the allotments that back onto my home. No chemicals containing Neonicotinoids are allowed on any of the 100+ plots. These bees are thriving thankfully. I saw lots on my Apple trees yesterday.
Two farmers I know (from the Pub) are very worried by the bee decline. They are taking measures to encourage the many species of wild bee and wasp onto their crops to aid polination. Both of them have stopped spraying their broad bean (and other) crops with anything but a soap based solution to keep the green & blackfly populations down.
My garden is totally organic. In the main, I use sympatheic planting to control the pests. If I could control the neighbours dog who keeps using my veggie patch as a litter tray I'd be happy.
Gmo
Products are prime suspects as well. I am still researching what pesticides are implicated but the one you mentioned rings a bell. The EU science community is a very conservative one and from my experience meeting there standards for medical products from a company I worked for here.
What I find deplorable that the first thing they did was to sue even in the face of a lot of evidence. This is as you are aware a very important issue that I would think the companies would try to prove it safe first. Our environment especially in our food sector has become brittle from the last 20 years of backpedaling and not enforcing laws on the books, this could be a potential game end for a lot of people who already on the knife edge of survival. If this got loose in Africa the number of deaths from starvation would be incalculable. And with the stress in our country and the potential of Phoenix like weather in Fargo ND it is a loaded gun to our head as well. The loss of the prime pollinators from our environment could trigger a catastrophic die off rivaling the KT boundary extinction.
Misha Nova
PS
The dangerous chemical Bayer makes is a neonicotinoid, or neonic. Neonics are soaked into seeds, spreading through the plant and killing insects stopping by for a snack. It gets into the pollen as well
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Sadly, it isn't as straightforward
as the pesticides killing bees, which, while it is a factor, there is also Newcastle disease which kills hive bees and some other diseases which are killing bumble bees, not to mention climate change which seems to be having an effect upon all sorts of habitats.
Having said that, farming is the biggest cause of loss of species, which as it gets more industrialised destroys natural habitats which in turn support so many species. As the pressure caused by an expanding population for food and places to live, I suspect it will only get worse.
On a positive note, I went dormousing yesterday and we found two in the survey area, one of which was in a torpid state. I took a photo which thanks to the auto focus on the camera showed Matthew's hand very nicely but this blurred brown thing in the middle of it. Note to self, take SLR next time.
Angharad