January 2021
The three most commonly used neonicotinoid insecticides were banned entirely for agricultural use in 2018 by the EU, a decision that the UK government supported. This decision was the culmination of decades of scientific research showing beyond doubt that these insecticides were harming bees and other wild insects, and more generally were polluting soils, leaching in to freshwater systems, and contaminating wildflowers and hedgerow shrubs.
Neonicotinoids are harmful to insect life in miniscule amounts; for example just one teaspoon (5 g) of neonicotinoid is enough to deliver a lethal dose to 1 ¼ billion honeybees – enough dead bees to fill 4 long-wheel-base lorries. They have also proved to be very persistent in the environment, turning up in soils five years or more after they were last used. Once in woody plants, such as flowering hedgerow shrubs, they also persist for years. As a result of all this evidence, The European Food Standards Agency concluded that there were no safe uses for these chemicals.
It is thus of great concern that the UK government has just given in to pressure from the farming lobby and granted a derogation for farmers to use the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on sugar beet in 2021. This is to protect their crop from beet yellows virus spread by aphids, a serious problem that has significantly reduced yields in recent years.
While we empathize with farmers, who have had a difficult time for many years and face further uncertainty over Brexit, if one steps back and looks at the bigger picture, this decision makes no sense. Sugar is a crop with zero nutritive value. We currently consume far too much, and it is a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic and associated surge in diabetes. Our government introduced a sugar tax on fizzy drinks to try to reduce our intake, and we should probably extend this to other products rammed full of sugar, particularly those targeted at children. In short, we should be growing and consuming less sugar. So why would we allow the return of a pesticide which we know will do environmental harm, so that we can continue to eat too much of something that is making us ill?
A counter-argument that has been used to support the neonicotinoid derogation is that they have been granted in other countries (e.g. France), so that if we do not allow UK farmers to use them we will just end up importing the crop from elsewhere and hence export the environmental cost of growing it. The flaw with this argument is that it leads inevitably to a race to the bottom. For example, we also import food from USA and China, which have much lower environmental and welfare standards – so should we drop ours to match? The answer is not to drop our standards, but to prevent imports of food produced with lower standards – something that surely ought to be in our power following Brexit [and which is made very clear in the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill that I helped to write and which is currently going through parliament]. This might mean that sugar prices rise, which would surely be a good thing. It would also free up fertile land currently used for sugar beet for growing nutritious crops. We currently import 70% of our fruit and veg (exporting the environmental costs of producing them), when we have a climate and soils in which we could easily grow many more.
At a global scale, intensive farming is a major driver of the biodiversity crisis, and in particular is driving ongoing declines in insect populations. We should not forget that we are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction event, an extinction event driven by humans putting their own interests before those of the environment and future generations. Britain has suffered more than most, and is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth. We need to move away from a farming system that all-too-often looks for a chemical solution to problems, and which does not factor in the full environmental costs of decisions.
We need big-picture, joined-up thinking from our government, not caving in to lobby groups, and not putting the narrow economic interests of a few ahead of the long-term health of our environment. Farming is very heavily supported by subsidies from the taxpayer. If those subsidies were redirected, to support farmers in truly sustainable regenerative farming of nutritious crops, then we could help farmers transition away from growing so much sugar, and to move away from growing crops in ways that continue to harm our shared environment.
Dave Goulson is Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex. He studies the ecology and conservation of bumblebees, and has published over 270 scientific papers on bees and other insects. In 2006 he founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
( source- https://www.wcl.org.uk/poisoning-the-environment-to-make-ourselves-ill.asp )
From The Wildlife Trusts
The Wildlife Trusts are dismayed that the Government are asking us to choose between the plight of farmers and the plight of bees and wild pollinators.
The Government has bowed to pressure from the National Farmers Union and agreed to authorise the use of the highly damaging neonicotinoid thiamethoxam for the treatment of sugar beet seed in 2021. The Wildlife Trusts strongly oppose this decision.
The Secretary of State, George Eustice, made the decision in response to the potential danger posed from beet yellows virus, despite a similar application being refused in 2018 by the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides because of unacceptable environmental risks.
In 2017, the UK Government supported restrictions on the neonicotinoid pesticides across the European Union due to the very clear harm that they were causing to bees and other wildlife. The then Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, promised that the Government would maintain these restrictions unless the scientific evidence changed. The evidence has not changed – indeed, the devastating impact this group of pesticides is having on our wildlife has increased, and hardly a month goes by without yet more evidence of the wider ecological crisis. Academic and author, Professor Dave Goulson, has warned that one teaspoon of neonic is enough to kill 1.25 billion honeybees, equivalent to four lorryloads.
The Government has stated that authorised applications will have strict conditions to ensure that wildlife is not harmed, but this assertion does not stand up to scrutiny. The authorisation allows “seed-dressing” of sugar beet crops with neonicotinoid pesticides, a method of application that results in only 5% of the pesticide going where it is targeted, in the crop. The rest ends up accumulating in the soil, from where it can be absorbed by the roots of wildflowers and hedgerow plants, or can leach into rivers and streams where it could harm over 3,800 invertebrate species, which spend at least part of their life cycle in freshwater.
The authorisation also proposes adding weed killer to sugar beet fields to ‘protect’ bees by killing wildflowers that grow alongside the sugar beet – because beneficial ‘weeds’ will have absorbed neonicotinoids (neonics) through the contaminated soil. Doing so would seriously harm already-threatened populations of wildflowers and the insects that depend on them.
Joan Edwards, Director of Public Affairs at The Wildlife Trusts says:
“The Government has bowed to pressure from the National Farmers Union even though, three years ago, the UK Government supported restrictions on the neonicotinoid pesticides across the European Union, because of the very clear harm that they were causing to bees and other pollinators. We will be writing to the Prime Minister requesting that he reverses the Secretary of State’s decision and focus support for farmers to adopt non-chemical alternatives so that agriculture supports nature and does not destroy it.
“Insect populations have suffered drastic declines in the UK – and these are set to have far-reaching consequences for both wildlife and people. Recent evidence suggests we have lost 50% or more of our insects since 1970, and 41% of the Earth’s remaining five million insect species are now ‘threatened with extinction’. Insects are food for numerous larger animals including birds, bats, reptiles, amphibians and fish, and they perform vital roles for people too – such as pollination of crops and wildflowers, pest control and nutrient recycling.
The Secretary of State’s decision to authorise the use of an environmentally devastating chemical to increase production of a crop with no nutritional value is madness.
“Instead, the Government should be focussing their efforts on regenerative farming approaches, supporting farmers to produce nutritional food which is good for people and has a positive effect on wildlife.”
The Wildlife Trusts are dismayed that the Government are asking us to choose between the plight of farmers and the plight of bees and wild pollinators. Farmers are in the eye of the storm, experiencing the impact of climate change and more extreme weather events including the mild winter last year, which fuelled the virus affecting sugar beet. Farmers need support to be resilient to climate change and to move to alternatives, not given a licence to pollute soil and kill bees.
The weight of evidence shows a significant environmental risk posed by neonicotinoids – particularly to our bees and other pollinators – and hundreds of thousands of people came together across Britain over the last decade to call for better protection of our bee populations, and for these highly toxic pesticides to be banned.
Sugar is a crop with zero nutritive value and it is an accepted fact that we currently consume far too much; it is a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic and associated surge in diabetes. In response to this epidemic and the associated cost to the NHS, our Government introduced a sugar tax on fizzy drinks to try to reduce our intake. This move sits at odds with their latest decision to allow the return of a pesticide, which will enable the growing of a crop that is at the root of the problem – one which we know will cause environmental harm.
In 2017, the then Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, said*:
“I have set out our vision for a Green Brexit in which environmental standards are not only maintained but enhanced.
“I’ve always been clear I will be led by the science on this matter. The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our £100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood. I believe this justifies further restrictions on their use. We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.”
It is unfortunate that within seven days of leaving Europe, his successor Mr Eustice, has agreed to a derogation of the law preventing the use of neonics.
Joan Edwards adds:
“It’s absurd that as the UK Government commits to spending £3bn of international climate finance on restoring nature and biodiversity, it is also approving the use of nature-destroying neonicotinoid pesticides here in the UK. The Prime Minister is right to say that we will not achieve our goals on climate change, sustainable development or preventing pandemics
( source- https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/bad-news-bees-government-reverses-ban-bee-killing-neonicotinoids )
